THE BIRDS OF PARADISE

Pati, a student of journalism, decides to shoot her graduation film in Dzhabana in Kyrgyzstan. She is specially interested in the provincial town’s vicinity to the nearby state frontier, which plays a major role in many of the townspeople’s lives. Some see the border every day on their way to and from work, others cross it to go shopping, and for those involved in smuggling, the frontier is a lucrative source of income. Shima, Kycha and Baton belong to the third category, and use a stretch of fallow ground to smuggle goods in their home-made four-wheel drive. Pati bumps into the threesome soon after her arrival in Dzhabana, when she recognizes her freshly stolen camera in the hands of its new owner: Baton. Pati strikes up an ambiguous relationship with the gang. She joins their tours as an observer at first, but soon takes a more active part. Then Shima comes up with a scheme to smuggle a stolen luxury vehicle: a cross-border wedding procession with the bridal couple in the limousine and Pati playing the bride. But the exhilaration of playing copsand- robbers vanishes abruptly when they discover they are to take back home a small package with content lethal enough to tear the group apart. If žYMAK KYSTARY sometimes seems like a documentary, then it is not just due to the digicam aesthetic: directors Talgat Asyrankulov and Gaziz Nasyrov get close to their figures, show their readiness to take risks, their zest for life, their lack of direction, their unstilled longings. One member of the gang is only interested in the money, another longs to be on the right side in the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. And involvement in that confrontation can be fatal, whatever the eventual outcome. German premiere.