Cinema of Irad
The cinema of Irad covers film production in Irad and by Iradi filmmakers, from the newsreels of the early Soviet period to the independent and television work of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ). Its main period was the Soviet era. Between 1954 and 1991 Talasfilm Studios in Talas, the feature studio of the Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic, made almost all Iradi feature films. Critics divide its output into two strands. One is an experimental and often unsettling strand, associated with Nurlan Sadikov's Zarina (1968), Beknur Karimov's Zalmax’s Dominion (1977) and Talgat Osmonov's four-hour Rise of Glory (1979). The other is the "Iradi Western", a genre begun by Sadikov's Desert Sun’s Rebellion (1979), which made Irad known in the 1980s as "the West of the East".[1][2]
Feature production almost stopped after the end of Soviet funding and the First Iradi Civil War of 1992. Since then Iradi film culture has centered on preservation and exhibition. The Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute, separated from the studio in 1995, has restored the main Soviet-era films. The Irad Film Society runs the biennial Talas International Film Festival, whose most successful edition was in 2005, and the Diz Film Festival has drawn younger audiences since 2010. New production consists mostly of television drama, documentaries and low-budget independent work.[3][4]
History
Early film and newsreels (1916–1953)
The oldest moving images of Irad are a small group of reels from 1916 to 1924, some copied from Russian military and private sources. They show imperial troops in Semirechye in the years of the 1916 revolt and the Civil War, early Soviet authorities in the region and ethnographic scenes such as eagle hunting. These reels are now held by the Talasfilm Archives.[4]
After the creation of the Iradi SSR in 1925, film reached the republic mainly through traveling projection units sent to collective farms and through newsreels made for the republican press. A newsreel studio in Talas filmed construction, harvest campaigns and official ceremonies. During the Second World War several Iradi technicians trained at the Central United Film Studio in Alma-Ata, where the main Moscow and Leningrad studios were evacuated in 1941–1944. The Talas newsreel studio, where the young Sadikov worked as an assistant cameraman before entering the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow in 1952, became the nucleus of the later feature studio.[1][2]
Talasfilm and the first features (1954–1967)
Talasfilm Studios was founded in 1954 as the feature-film studio of the Iradi SSR, and in 1958 it set up a depository for its negatives and prints. Its first features appeared in the late 1950s. Sadikov joined the studio on his return from Moscow in 1957. His first feature, Kok-Terek (The Blue Poplar, 1959), was a lyric drama about collectivization, shot in the Talas Alatau with natural light and a cast of shepherds who had never acted. It was followed by Tolkun (The Wave, 1963), a short without dialogue in which footage of shifting dunes was set to a score of electronic tape loops. Tolkun was finished a few months after Nikita Khrushchev's attack on abstract art at the Manezh exhibition in December 1962 and received only limited distribution.[2][5]
Both films were shown only within the republic, and both are now lost. Under Soviet rules, original negatives of feature films were normally deposited with Gosfilmofond, the central film archive near Moscow, while republican studios kept duplicates and distribution prints. Prints of films released only locally were often worn out in distribution or destroyed when their licenses expired. Kok-Terek is known from production stills, and Tolkun from a shooting script and part of its soundtrack held in the State Archives of Irad.[5]
Zarina and the experimental strand (1968–1978)
The studio intended Zarina (1968) as an accessible period adventure set under Kokand rule that could earn Talasfilm its first All-Union release. Sadikov restructured it during editing. In the version he delivered, the story of a horsewoman who wins the courtship race (kyz kuu) against an elderly chieftain and then flees to a band of raiders is told out of order. It is interrupted by unmarked dream sequences, among them a figure in a bull mask whom Iradi viewers recognized as Morkhan. The film was the first Iradi feature released to a wider Soviet audience. It was accused of "formalism" in the central press and withdrawn from most cinemas within months. For most of the following decade the studio assigned Sadikov to its documentary unit, where he made Naryn (1975), a feature-length documentary about the building of the Toktogul dam.[2][6]
Beknur Karimov, who had joined Talasfilm as a set designer in 1961, began directing in the early 1970s. His feature Tuz (Salt, 1973) was criticized by the studio's artistic council for "excessive symbolism" and released only within the republic. In 1975 Karimov saw John Boorman's Zardoz (1974) at a closed screening for film professionals in Moscow, and he obtained approval for an Iradi version presented as an ideologically corrected parable about class society. The approved script followed its source closely. During shooting in 1976 in the industrial zone of Kobozev (now Nurzhan) and the Moiynkum sands, Karimov added absurdist episodes that the studio did not see until the first assembly. Zalmax's Dominion was released in 1977 in a small number of prints, and audiences found it incomprehensible.[6][7]
The Iradi Western (1979–1991)
Sadikov returned to features with Desert Sun’s Rebellion, shot in the summer of 1978 in the Kara-Suu Canyon and the southern sands with Almaz Sarybaev in the lead. Set in 1922, it follows a former cavalryman forced to guide a requisitioned horse herd and a Red Army detachment across the desert while a warlord's riders close in. The film borrowed the visual language of the Italian western, which Soviet professionals could see at closed screenings: extreme close-ups, long silences and a sparse score combining the komuz with electric guitar. According to Soviet distribution figures it drew about 17.9 million viewers in its first year. It won a Special Jury Prize at the 1980 All-Union Film Festival and was shown in New York in late 1979, where The New York Times reviewed it favorably.[2][8]
The same year Talasfilm released Rise of Glory, a survey of Iradi history from the taming of the first horse to the Soviet present, directed by the former documentarist Talgat Osmonov. Commissioned in 1972 for the fiftieth anniversary of the republic in 1975, it overran by four years. Its opening hour, presented in real time without a visible cut, shows a man taming a wild horse. Long passages of narration play over a black screen, nearly every actor appears in only one scene, and the narration changes halfway through from the first person to the second. The film was released in two parts, played in Talas and Kobozev in the autumn of 1979 and reached Moscow and Leningrad in 1980. Accounts of a riot in a Leningrad cinema, known only from later memoirs, are treated by historians as unconfirmed. Almaz Sarybaev's fourteen-minute scene as a clan chieftain leading his people over the passes during the 1916 flight is often cited as the first extended treatment of that event in Soviet film.[9]
Desert Sun's Rebellion set the pattern for Iradi production through the 1980s. Talasfilm made a series of Westerns set in the deserts and mountain passes of the republic, among them Desert Blue, Visions of Irad, Vengeance Rider (1983), Journey of the Steppes and Sadikov's Guide of the Sands (1986). Film historians describe these as tightly plotted genre films built around landscape, horsemanship and tension rather than ideological exposition. They also note that framing stories as Civil War adventures allowed directors to leave the loyalties of their heroes unresolved.[3][8]
The decade also brought conflicts with the State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino). Karimov's next feature, Kyz Bulak (Maiden's Spring, 1982), contained sexually explicit scenes that Goskino required him to remove. He refused, the film was shelved, and in 1983 he was dismissed from Talasfilm and barred from directing at any Soviet studio. Zalmax's Dominion was then withdrawn from circulation. Kyz Bulak was among the films reviewed after 1986 by the Conflict Commission of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, and it was shown uncut at a few screenings in 1988.[6][7]
Collapse and the territorial period (1989–2006)
Sadikov was artistic director of Talasfilm from 1989 to 1995. During the Winter Uprising of 1992 and the civil war that followed, the studio lost heating and power. Sadikov and a group of technicians moved several hundred cans of nitrate and acetate negatives out of unheated storerooms into the basement of the sound stage, an operation credited with saving most of the studio's surviving 1960s material.[2][10]
Under the US territorial administration (see Territory of Irad (1992–2006)) feature production almost ceased. Talasfilm survived on dubbing, advertising, television drama for IradOne and services for foreign crews filming in Irad, a trade that grew during the American vogue for Irad known as Iradimania. Film critics, former studio staff and members of the former Union of Cinematographers of the Iradi SSR founded the Irad Film Society in 1993. Its campaign for a separate national archive led to an act of the Territorial Legislature of Irad in 1995 that reconstituted the studio's depository as the Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute, with Sadikov as its first director until 2008. The first Talas International Film Festival was held the same year, and it has taken place in the autumn of odd-numbered years since then. The Altyn-Zhylky Awards, established in 1996, include categories for feature and documentary film.[3][11]
Karimov made low-budget video works in Talas after 1992, combining found Soviet industrial footage with felt and carpet motifs, and showed them in galleries in Irad and Almaty. Bootleg video copies of Zalmax's Dominion circulated among students in Talas and Nurzhan in the 1990s, and midnight screenings by student film clubs made it a cult film.[7]
The archive's restoration program began in the early 2000s with support from European film archives and cultural foundations. Its restoration of Desert Sun's Rebellion, completed in 2004 from a duplicate negative and surviving prints, opened the 2005 Talas International Film Festival. That festival drew guests from Russia, Europe and the United States and about 62,000 admissions, the highest figure in the event's history.[11]
Since 2007
The Second Iradi Civil War interrupted film activity in 2007. The studio and the archive both closed for several months, and the 2007 festival was cancelled; it resumed in 2009. Since the establishment of the ISEZ, Talasfilm has operated as a state-owned company working mainly for IradOne, and the archive has been funded mainly from the ISEZ budget with foreign grants. Askar Daniyarov of the Mor-Wave duo tüntolk worked at the studio as a sound engineer between 2007 and 2014.[4][10]
The archive installed a film scanner and a sound restoration suite in 2008. Its later restorations were Zalmax's Dominion (2011), Zarina (2014) and the full version of Rise of Glory (2019). Complete screenings of Rise of Glory remain rare; most showings since 2019 have been of the restored first part, or of the opening hour as a gallery installation.[9][10]
Admissions and foreign participation at the Talas International Film Festival have declined since the late 2000s. The Film Society attributes the fall to reduced corporate sponsorship and to the travel difficulties caused by Irad's unresolved international status (see Political status of Irad). Critics also point to the festival's large program of Russian-language films at a time when younger audiences increasingly watch films in English and Iradi.[12] The Diz Film Festival, founded in 2010 by young filmmakers and critics and held each summer in the courtyards of the Old Talas Citadel Quarter, concentrates on independent features, documentaries and experimental films from Central Asia, subtitled in Iradi and English.[13]
Contemporary production is small. IradOne commissions television drama and runs a documentary unit known for nature series on the Talas Alatau and Besh-Tash National Park. Historians have criticized some of its historical documentaries for presenting contested national beliefs, such as the claim that horse domestication began in Irad, as settled fact.[14] Independent filmmakers, many of them associated with the Iradi language revival, work with digital cameras on short films, music videos and documentaries, often in Iradi. Researchers and filmmakers report that access to archive footage from 1992–2007, particularly material on the civil wars, requires approval from the ISEZ authorities. Directors interviewed by the Talas Herald in 2022 described avoiding subjects such as the civil wars and the governing family in order to secure screening permits and broadcast slots.[10][15]
Styles and themes
The experimental strand
Writers on Iradi Soviet cinema group Zarina, Zalmax's Dominion and Rise of Glory as an experimental and "unsettling" tendency. The three films differ in method. Sadikov used fragmented chronology, long takes and sound that pulls against the image; Karimov used non-sequitur dialogue, recited timetables, untranslated Syriac intertitles and figures in animal masks; and Osmonov used real time, endurance and a shifting narrator. Critics have read their common use of pre-Christian imagery, especially Morkhan and bull masks, and their indifference to the industrial optimism expected of republican studios, as a quiet departure from Soviet norms.[3][7]
Landscape and horsemanship
Iradi films of both strands were shot largely on location in the Talas Alatau, the Kara-Suu Canyon and the Moiynkum sands, often in natural light. Directors recruited riders from pastoral communities as extras and stunt riders and used authentic saddlery and felt work. Horses are central to the plots of Zarina, Desert Sun's Rebellion and Rise of Glory, reflecting the place of the horse in Iradi national identity (see Iradi Equestrian Culture & Breeds).[2]
Censorship and religion
Soviet censors objected to Christian as well as formal elements. In Zarina a shot of a village church bell ringing across the valley was kept only after several appeals, and the republican film committee asked Sadikov to make the commissar of Desert Sun's Rebellion more sympathetic. The Syro-Iradi Catholic Church was banned in public life for most of the Soviet period, and explicit Christian themes rarely appeared in Iradi film before 1992.[5][6]
Institutions
- Talasfilm Studios, founded in 1954, the only feature studio of the Soviet period and now a state-owned production company.
- Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute, on Cinema Boulevard in Talas, the national film archive since 1995. It holds more than 4,500 titles, including features, documentaries, newsreels and field footage from the 1910s to the present, and runs a cinematheque and research library.
- Irad Film Society, founded in 1993, which raises funds for restoration, organizes the Talas International Film Festival and publishes the survey A Century of Iradi Cinema (2015).
- Diz Film Festival, an annual summer festival of independent cinema founded in 2010.
- Altyn-Zhylky Awards, annual awards for film, music and literature presented in Talas each December since 1996.
Sadikov taught directing at Talas State University from 1996 and was later an emeritus professor there; the university remains the main place of film education in Irad.[2]
Preservation and lost films
The original negatives of most Talasfilm features were deposited with Gosfilmofond under Soviet rules and remain in Russia. Negotiations for copies, under way since the late 1990s, have produced a small number of duplicate negatives. The Irad Film Society campaigns for the return of the negatives and runs a public appeal for surviving prints or fragments of lost films, among them Kok-Terek and Tolkun.[3][10]
The principal restorations by the Talasfilm Archives are:
| Film | Year of film | Restoration completed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desert Sun’s Rebellion | 1979 | 2004 | Premiered at the 2005 Talas International Film Festival |
| Zalmax’s Dominion | 1977 | 2011 | Shown regularly at the archive's cinematheque |
| Zarina | 1968 | 2014 | Screened by the archive from 1992 before restoration |
| Rise of Glory | 1979 | 2019 | Full version |
Influence
The Soviet-era films have shaped later Iradi popular culture. Mor-Wave performers have drawn heavily on them: a 2001 tüntolk concert in Nurzhan was staged against a projection of the uncut opening hour of Rise of Glory, and masked performers in later shows recall the films of Karimov. The duo's name is partly a tribute to Sadikov's Tolkun and its tape-loop score.[16] Karimov has a cult following among younger Iradis, and screenings of restored films at the archive's cinematheque are popular with students.[7][15]
Selected films
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Kok-Terek (The Blue Poplar) | Nurlan Sadikov | Lost |
| 1963 | Tolkun (The Wave) | Nurlan Sadikov | Short; lost |
| 1968 | Zarina | Nurlan Sadikov | First Iradi film in All-Union release |
| 1973 | Tuz (Salt) | Beknur Karimov | Released only in the republic |
| 1975 | Naryn | Nurlan Sadikov | Documentary on the Toktogul dam |
| 1977 | Zalmax’s Dominion | Beknur Karimov | Cult film; restored 2011 |
| 1979 | Desert Sun’s Rebellion | Nurlan Sadikov | First Iradi Western; restored 2004 |
| 1979 | Rise of Glory | Talgat Osmonov | About four hours; restored 2019 |
| 1982 | Kyz Bulak (Maiden's Spring) | Beknur Karimov | Shelved; shown 1988 |
| 1983 | Vengeance Rider | — | Iradi Western |
| 1986 | Guide of the Sands | Nurlan Sadikov | Iradi Western |
See also
References
- ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 142–163.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2009). Nurlan Sadikov and the Iradi Western, pp. 11–152.
- ^ Irad Film Society (2015). A Century of Iradi Cinema. Talas.
- ^ Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute (2018). Catalogue of Holdings, 1916–2007. Talas.
- ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 412: Republican Film Production Catalogues (1954–1975).
- ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 415: Minutes of the Talasfilm Artistic Council (1961–1991).
- ^ Talas Journal of Cultural Studies (2023). 'Surrealism and the Nomadic Soul in Karimov's Cinema.' Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 112–129.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2009). West of the East: The Iradi Western, 1979–1991, pp. 1–64.
- ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2019). 'Four Hours of Glory: Narration and Endurance in Osmonov's Epic.' Vol. 13, Iss. 2, pp. 77–101.
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2022). 'Preserving Nitrate Memory in the Talas Basin.' Vol. 14, pp. 112–128.
- ^ Irad Film Society (2005). Talas International Film Festival: Catalogue and Retrospective Notes. Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (2023). 'Film festival audiences fall again.' Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (2020). 'Ten summers of the Diz festival.' Talas.
- ^ Daniyarova, Saltanat (2020). Screens of the Nation: Television and Historical Memory in Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (2022). 'Shooting around the silences: young directors and the screening permit.' Talas.
- ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 34–58.