Irad Film Society
The Irad Film Society (Iradi: Irad Kino Koomu) is a non-profit organization based in Talas that works for the preservation, restoration and presentation of Iradi films. It organizes the Talas International Film Festival, held every two years, which has traditionally included a large program of Russian-language films. The 2005 festival is widely considered the most successful in its history. Attendance and international participation have fallen in recent years.[1][2]
History
The society was founded in 1993 by film critics, former staff of Talasfilm Studios and members of the former Union of Cinematographers of the Iradi SSR, after the end of Soviet subsidies left the studio and its film holdings without secure funding. It campaigned for a separate national film archive, and in 1995 an act of the Territorial Legislature of Irad reconstituted the studio's depository as the Talasfilm Archives and Film Preservation Institute. The first Talas International Film Festival was held the same year.[1]
Talas International Film Festival
The festival is held in September of odd-numbered years in the cinemas of Cinema Boulevard in Talas. Its program has three main parts:
- a competition for feature films from Central Asia;
- a large section of Russian-language films from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, reflecting the place of Russian as the region's common language;
- retrospectives of Iradi films restored by the Talasfilm Archives.
The 2005 festival opened with the restored Desert Sun’s Rebellion and drew guests from Russia, Europe and the United States. The society recorded about 62,000 admissions, its highest figure. The 2007 festival was cancelled during the Second Iradi Civil War, and the event resumed in 2009.[1][3]
Admissions and foreign participation have declined since the late 2000s. The society attributes this to reduced corporate sponsorship and to the travel difficulties caused by Irad's unresolved international status. Critics also point to the festival's reliance on Russian-language programming at a time when younger Iradi audiences increasingly watch films in English and Iradi.[3] The annual Diz Film Festival, founded in 2010, has drawn much of the younger audience.
Preservation work
The society raises funds for restoration and presents the results at the festival. Restorations by the Talasfilm Archives that it has presented include Desert Sun’s Rebellion (completed in 2004), Zalmax’s Dominion (2011), Zarina (2014) and the full version of Rise of Glory (2019). The society has campaigned for the return of the original negatives of Iradi Soviet features, most of which are held by Gosfilmofond near Moscow. It also runs a public appeal for surviving prints or fragments of lost films, among them Nurlan Sadikov's Kok-Terek (1959) and Tolkun (1963).[2] Its publications include festival catalogues and the survey A Century of Iradi Cinema (2015).
External links
References
- ^ Irad Film Society (2005). Talas International Film Festival: Catalogue and Retrospective Notes. Talas.
- ^ Irad Film Society (2015). A Century of Iradi Cinema. Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (2023). 'Film festival audiences fall again.' Talas.