ULBOLSYN

In her conservative hometown of Karatas, young actress Ulbolsyn is considered an arrogant and promiscuous city dweller who once appeared naked on television. Ulbolsyn wishes to liberate her sister Azhar from the prudish place and send her to a school abroad. But before the two can leave Karatas, Azhar is suddenly kidnapped. Soon Ulbolsyn is horrified to learn that local miracle healer Urgen intends to make her sister his wife before the day is over. Undeterred, she does everything in her power to save Azhar and overcome the patriarchal constraints of the village community. In his gripping thriller, Adilkhan Yerzhanov draws attention to the challenges of female emancipation in his home country, where a past hell-bent on preserving conservative traditions collides with the urbane, cosmopolitan nature of modernity. Yerzhanov's cinematic social criticism isn't above permitting itself a welcome pinch of black humour either.