Day Three -- Saturday -- 20 September 2025

Departure Location: UCA Campus Parking; Khan Tengri Hotel

Location: Cinema One (Blue), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Reclaiming Space

Through diverse cinematic languages - from documentary to fiction and AI animation - these five shorts weave together narratives about personal and collective journeys, legacy for homeland, female leadership, questions of belonging and citizenship, individual agency, and the transformative power of narrative, asserting their presence and perspectives in spaces where voices seek to be heard.

Provided (9'10'') dir. Soheil Rahimi, Iran – International Short Fiction. In exchange for her husband’s release from prison, Zahra sets her own condition for the benefactors.
Feasting Junta (7') dir. André Córdova Rudstedt, Chile – International Documentary. The men of the Chilean junta indulge in lavish celebrations while their nation crumbles around them.
Comrade Policeman (12'19'') dir. Assel Aushakimova, Kazakhstan – Regional Documentary. The journalist of the Kazakhstan state television channel has to make a report about the police image campaign.
I Promise (3') dir. Altynai Turgun & Nurkamal Zhetigenova, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. A college romance turns into a nightmare when a young woman, forced to sacrifice her future for marriage, confronts her husband’s dark violence and must fight for her safety.
The Late Wind (22'34) dir. Shugyla Serzhan, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. A young pregnant woman grapples with an uncertain future as her boyfriend vanishes, leaving her searching for answers amid city turmoil.
Bell at Dusk (13'38'') dir. Saadat Kazakbaeva, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. The old cobbler has lived alone for years, but his quiet life takes an unexpected turn when his radio breaks down.

Location: Cinema Two (Yellow), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Too Young, Too Soon

Intimate portraits of childhood resilience to stories of young people asserting their identities within restrictive environments, each film reveals how children develop their own strategies for understanding and shaping their worlds.

In Zaynab's Heaven (25') dir. Ali Mehdi, Pakistan, Lebanon & United Arab Emirates – International Documentary. A Hazara filmmaker follows a gravestone maker, a water girl, and a man who buried his own limb, capturing their daily lives within a graveyard.
Left-Handed (14'59'') dir. Nasrin Mohammadpour, Iran – International Short Fiction. Maryam is a 38-year-old woman who heads a family of four. She decides to cut off her right hand while working in a poultry slaughterhouse because, in this way, she can get more money from insurance than losing her left hand to pay her debts.
Furugh (21'57'') dir. Odina Mahmad, Tajikistan – Regional Short Fiction. The story of a seven-year-old deaf-mute girl torn between rejection and hope, and a father’s desperate search for her care and safety.
The Bag (8'31'') dir. Habib Shahzad, Pakistan – International Short Fiction. Amid displacement, a boy’s hold on holy relics becomes a fragile beacon of hope, where innocence speaks the secret language of the divine.

Location: Cinema Three (Red), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Where We Belong

The program celebrates five films that explore how individuals create meaning and community within their chosen or inherited landscapes. From a former migrant worker transforming provincial theater in Tajikistan to a documentarian discovering his mother's vital work in healthcare, from a woman who has spent three decades driving milk trucks through mountain roads to a blind fisherman maintaining ancient bread-making traditions, to a village boy navigating childhood friendships and family responsibilities—each story reveals how people build lives of significance within specific places and circumstances.

These stories illuminate the dignity found in daily labour, creative ambition, caregiving, tradition, and childhood play, showing how personal dedication and community connection transcend geographic isolation or economic limitation. Together, they form a portrait of resilience that emerges not from escape or transformation, but from the deep commitment to making life meaningful exactly where one finds oneself.

A Dance Alone For Two (12') dir. Mehr Said, Tajikistan – Regional Student. In the past, a migrant worker, 36-year-old Rano became an ambitious theatrical director in a theatre in a small Tajik town. Despite many difficulties, Rano has to make great efforts to breathe life back into the provincial theatre.
Mother (12'2'') dir. Bayaman Asanaliev, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. Young documentarian Bayaman turns his lens on his mother, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, capturing the intensity and intimacy of a night shift in the maternity ward. Amid difficult births and quiet conversations, he discovers a world with its own rules and unseen heroes.
Roza Eje (19'4'') dir. Faridun Karabozov & Erik Stybaev, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. For 30 years, Roza Eje has driven a milk truck through Karakol, enduring grueling physical labor and navigating complex human relationships. Her perseverance not only sustains her livelihood but also shapes the community around her.
Co-Exist (12') dir. Komeil Soheili, Iran – International Documentary. On Iran’s Hormuz Island, blind captain Dela sustains an old bread-making tradition with three unique island elements — fish he hears in the sea, natural salt, and edible soil — against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension.
Alikhan's Village (14'30'') dir. Dastan Borkosh, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Documentary. In his small village, Alikhan helps his father with chores before joining friends to play the traditional Kyrgyz game of alchiki, knowing everyone and their nicknames by heart.

Location: Cinema Four (Green), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Strings of Belonging

This program explores how communities and individuals navigate the complex relationship between inherited traditions and personal agency across Central and South Asia. Each work reveals different aspects of belonging—the weight of family expectations, the struggle for social recognition, the resilience found in educational spaces, and the power of traditional music to maintain cultural connection. Together, they form a meditation on how heritage both anchors and constrains us, and how communities and individuals find ways to honor the past while creating space for their own voices and choices.

Etude (16') dir. Mumin Latifi, Tajikistan - Regional Short Fiction. Etude tells the story of 10-year old Zafar, born into a family of hereditary musicians but drawn instead to street football. At its heart lies a generational conflict — fathers and sons divided over tradition — as Zafar struggles for the freedom to choose his own path.
We Are At Home (13'51'') dir. Shakhzoda Mirakova & Darya Gusmanova, Uzbekistan – Regional Documentary. The untold stories of the Luli, Central Asian Roma, highlighting their resilience and struggle for a rightful place in society.
The Silence After The Storm (10'47'') dir. Alina Rizwan, Pakistan – International Documentary. In flood-stricken Sindh, a young boy rewrites his rain-soaked dreams as classrooms turn to rivers and lessons flow with resilience — a story of youth redefining life’s horizon.
Strings of Belonging (20') dir. Umed Qurbonbekov, Tajikistan – Regional Student. In Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains, the ancient rubab weaves a tapestry of memory, faith, and identity, as musicians and craftsmen strive to preserve their heritage while navigating the tides of change.

Location: Univer Cinema

Location: Cinema One (Blue), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Between Earth and Sky

When conventional narratives fall short, these works expand cinematic boundaries to capture urgent realities across Central Asia - land dispossession, colonial legacies, environmental crisis and displacement through innovative visual and narrative techniques. By reimagining what cinema can be and do, each film demonstrates how experimental approaches become necessary tools for telling stories that demand to be heard, using form itself as both message and method in confronting realities that traditional storytelling cannot fully encompass.

Dert (12'7'') dir. Ali Zhetpis, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. In the Kazakh steppe, a family’s quiet morning is disrupted when two strangers leave a slot machine behind. As Merei becomes entranced by the game, tension rises and time itself seems to stand still.
Aralkum (13'43'') dirs. Daniel Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko, Uzbekistan & Germany – Regional Documentary. Aralkum is a cinematic kaleidoscope where the Aral desert flickers back into its former sea — sand becomes water, and an old man once more a fisherman.
Balqash Song (19'40'') dir. ArtCom Collective, Kazakhstan – Regional Documentary.
ILI ILI (15'29'') dir. Guzel Zakir, Kazakhstan - Regional Documentary. A collective memory of the first Uyghur migration from China to Kazakhstan. (1950–1966), where the Ili River emerges as both a landmark and a symbol of migration’s losses and hopes.

Location: Cinema Two (Yellow), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: No Other Gaze

This program brings together five films that examine the female experience through the lens of bodily autonomy, temporal anxiety, and the struggle for self-determination. These works traverse territories where women's private experiences collide with patriarchal structures—from girls forced into premature adulthood through arranged marriage and physical transformation to couples navigating medical uncertainty, from digital-age reflections on menstrual cycles and bodily ownership to visual poetry emerging from psychological confinement.

Each film reveals how women negotiate agency within systems designed to control their bodies, time, and choices. Whether confronting cultural traditions that commodify young women, fathers who remain willfully ignorant of daughters' suffering, medical institutions that measure life in six-month intervals, or digital spaces that commodify female bodies, these stories illuminate the ongoing struggle to claim ownership over one's own physical and emotional landscape. Together, they form a meditation on how women survive and resist within structures that seek to define and limit their existence.

Lukhtak (15'16'') dir. Samariddin Mukhitdinov, Tajikistan & China – Regional Short Fiction. Facing financial hardship, a Tajik family marries off their underage daughter for a bride price, trapping her and her younger sister in a generational cycle of suffering.
First Time (11'21'') dir. Meerim Dogdurbekova, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. A motherless girl undergoes a profound change that marks her passage into adulthood, while her father remains unaware of her physical and emotional struggles.
Xena's Body (12') dir. Occitane Lacurie – International Documentary. A reflection on the iPhone as more than a mirror—an intimate device that tracks the body while entangling knowledge, power, and desire.
A Long Letter to Love (7'25'') dir. Nika Krikun, Ukraine – International Documentary. Visual poetry in two parts discovered by the Narrator through dance. Each movement becomes a visual expression of her inner voice. The Narrator is trapped in the abandoned house of her own mind.
8:59 AM FOREVER (19'45'') dir. Ulyana Toporovskaya, Kazakhstan – Regional Documentary. Every six months, Jon and Joelle wait for the call that will decide whether they have more time together.

Location: Cinema Three (Red), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Between Duty and Dreams

This program brings together five films that explore how children and adults navigate the space between responsibility and longing, between what life demands and what the heart seeks. Each narrative examines moments when ordinary life intersects with the possibility of change—whether through music's therapeutic power, storytelling's emotional release, mythical lakes that grant wishes, the simple desire to play, or unexpected discoveries about our capacity for growth. Together, these works illuminate how hope persists even in constrained circumstances, and how the search for something beyond our current reality drives both children and adults toward small acts of rebellion, imagination, and connection.

Pain of Yore (10') dir. Alisho Qonunov, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. An otherwise enthusiastic professor of literature, teaching “War and Peace”, is disheartened by an inattentive classroom, which prompts him to recall and share his own war story – a story of tragedy, despair, and pain.
Ansar (5') dir. Anuarbek Khamitov, Kazakhstan - Regional Short Fiction. Ansar, who helps his mother clean the apartment building where she works as a janitor, is torn between duty and his dream of playing soccer with friends.
Rock Berkut (11'33'') dir. Tamerlan Almanov, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. Berkut, a hyperactive boy, discovers rock music and finds unexpected calm and focus — prompting his mother to enroll him in lessons.
Once Upon a Time in Korgazhino (17'52'') dir. Aray Karimova, Kazakhstan - Regional Short Fiction. Eleven-year-old Aslan flees an autumn children’s camp after hearing of Lake Shaitankol, said to grant wishes in exchange for sacrifice — and his only wish is to bring his mother back.
The Goldfish (12'3'') dir. Aizhamal Mirbek, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. Sezim, a young girl, is left alone when her father - her only relative - mysteriously disappears.

Location: Cinema Four (Green), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Reclaiming Space

Through diverse cinematic languages - from documentary to fiction and AI animation - these five shorts weave together narratives about personal and collective journeys, legacy for homeland, female leadership, questions of belonging and citizenship, individual agency, and the transformative power of narrative, asserting their presence and perspectives in spaces where voices seek to be heard.

Provided (9'10'') dir. Soheil Rahimi, Iran – International Short Fiction. In exchange for her husband’s release from prison, Zahra sets her own condition for the benefactors.
Feasting Junta (7') dir. André Córdova Rudstedt, Chile – International Documentary. The men of the Chilean junta indulge in lavish celebrations while their nation crumbles around them.
Comrade Policeman (12'19'') dir. Assel Aushakimova, Kazakhstan – Regional Documentary. The journalist of the Kazakhstan state television channel has to make a report about the police image campaign.
I Promise (3') dir. Altynai Turgun & Nurkamal Zhetigenova, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. A college romance turns into a nightmare when a young woman, forced to sacrifice her future for marriage, confronts her husband’s dark violence and must fight for her safety.
The Late Wind (22'34) dir. Shugyla Serzhan, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. A young pregnant woman grapples with an uncertain future as her boyfriend vanishes, leaving her searching for answers amid city turmoil.
Bell at Dusk (13'38'') dir. Saadat Kazakbaeva, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. The old cobbler has lived alone for years, but his quiet life takes an unexpected turn when his radio breaks down.

Location: Univer Cinema

Location: Cinema One (Blue), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Between Earth and Sky

When conventional narratives fall short, these works expand cinematic boundaries to capture urgent realities across Central Asia - land dispossession, colonial legacies, environmental crisis and displacement through innovative visual and narrative techniques. By reimagining what cinema can be and do, each film demonstrates how experimental approaches become necessary tools for telling stories that demand to be heard, using form itself as both message and method in confronting realities that traditional storytelling cannot fully encompass.

Dert (12'7'') dir. Ali Zhetpis, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. In the Kazakh steppe, a family’s quiet morning is disrupted when two strangers leave a slot machine behind. As Merei becomes entranced by the game, tension rises and time itself seems to stand still.
Aralkum (13'43'') dirs. Daniel Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko, Uzbekistan & Germany – Regional Documentary. Aralkum is a cinematic kaleidoscope where the Aral desert flickers back into its former sea — sand becomes water, and an old man once more a fisherman.
Balqash Song (19'40'') dir. ArtCom Collective, Kazakhstan - Regional Documentary.
ILI ILI (15'29'') dir. Guzel Zakir, Kazakhstan - Regional Documentary. A collective memory of the first Uyghur migration from China to Kazakhstan. (1950–1966), where the Ili River emerges as both a landmark and a symbol of migration’s losses and hopes.

Location: Cinema Two (Yellow), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Too Young, Too Soon

Intimate portraits of childhood resilience to stories of young people asserting their identities within restrictive environments, each film reveals how children develop their own strategies for understanding and shaping their worlds.

In Zaynab's Heaven (25') dir. Ali Mehdi, Pakistan, Lebanon & United Arab Emirates – International Documentary. A Hazara filmmaker follows a gravestone maker, a water girl, and a man who buried his own limb, capturing their daily lives within a graveyard.
Left-Handed (14'59'') dir. Nasrin Mohammadpour, Iran – International Short Fiction. Maryam is a 38-year-old woman who heads a family of four. She decides to cut off her right hand while working in a poultry slaughterhouse because, in this way, she can get more money from insurance than losing her left hand to pay her debts.
Furugh (21'57'') dir. Odina Mahmad, Tajikistan – Regional Short Fiction. The story of a seven-year-old deaf-mute girl torn between rejection and hope, and a father’s desperate search for her care and safety.
The Bag (8'31'') dir. Habib Shahzad, Pakistan – International Short Fiction. Amid displacement, a boy’s hold on holy relics becomes a fragile beacon of hope, where innocence speaks the secret language of the divine.

Location: Cinema Three (Red), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Where We Belong

The program celebrates five films that explore how individuals create meaning and community within their chosen or inherited landscapes. From a former migrant worker transforming provincial theater in Tajikistan to a documentarian discovering his mother's vital work in healthcare, from a woman who has spent three decades driving milk trucks through mountain roads to a blind fisherman maintaining ancient bread-making traditions, to a village boy navigating childhood friendships and family responsibilities—each story reveals how people build lives of significance within specific places and circumstances.

These stories illuminate the dignity found in daily labour, creative ambition, caregiving, tradition, and childhood play, showing how personal dedication and community connection transcend geographic isolation or economic limitation. Together, they form a portrait of resilience that emerges not from escape or transformation, but from the deep commitment to making life meaningful exactly where one finds oneself.

A Dance Alone For Two (12') dir. Mehr Said, Tajikistan – Regional Student. In the past, a migrant worker, 36-year-old Rano became an ambitious theatrical director in a theatre in a small Tajik town. Despite many difficulties, Rano has to make great efforts to breathe life back into the provincial theatre.
Mother (12'2'') dir. Bayaman Asanaliev, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. Young documentarian Bayaman turns his lens on his mother, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, capturing the intensity and intimacy of a night shift in the maternity ward. Amid difficult births and quiet conversations, he discovers a world with its own rules and unseen heroes.
Roza Eje (19'4'') dir. Faridun Karabozov & Erik Stybaev, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. For 30 years, Roza Eje has driven a milk truck through Karakol, enduring grueling physical labor and navigating complex human relationships. Her perseverance not only sustains her livelihood but also shapes the community around her.
Co-Exist (12') dir. Komeil Soheili, Iran – International Documentary. On Iran’s Hormuz Island, blind captain Dela sustains an old bread-making tradition with three unique island elements — fish he hears in the sea, natural salt, and edible soil — against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension.
Alikhan's Village (14'30'') dir. Dastan Borkosh, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Documentary. In his small village, Alikhan helps his father with chores before joining friends to play the traditional Kyrgyz game of alchiki, knowing everyone and their nicknames by heart.

Location: Cinema Four (Green), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Strings of Belonging

This program explores how communities and individuals navigate the complex relationship between inherited traditions and personal agency across Central and South Asia. Each work reveals different aspects of belonging—the weight of family expectations, the struggle for social recognition, the resilience found in educational spaces, and the power of traditional music to maintain cultural connection. Together, they form a meditation on how heritage both anchors and constrains us, and how communities and individuals find ways to honor the past while creating space for their own voices and choices.

Etude (16') dir. Mumin Latifi, Tajikistan - Regional Short Fiction. Etude tells the story of 10-yearold Zafar, born into a family of hereditary musicians but drawn instead to street football. At its heart lies a generational conflict — fathers and sons divided over tradition — as Zafar struggles for the freedom to choose his own path.
We Are At Home (13'51'') dir. Shakhzoda Mirakova & Darya Gusmanova, Uzbekistan – Regional Documentary. The untold stories of the Luli, Central Asian Roma, highlighting their resilience and struggle for a rightful place in society.
The Silence After The Storm (10'47'') dir. Alina Rizwan, Pakistan – International Documentary. In flood-stricken Sindh, a young boy rewrites his rain-soaked dreams as classrooms turn to rivers and lessons flow with resilience — a story of youth redefining life’s horizon.
Strings of Belonging (20') dir. Umed Qurbonbekov, Tajikistan – Regional Student. In Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains, the ancient rubab weaves a tapestry of memory, faith, and identity, as musicians and craftsmen strive to preserve their heritage while navigating the tides of change.

Location: Cinema Three (Red), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: Between Duty and Dreams

This program brings together five films that explore how children and adults navigate the space between responsibility and longing, between what life demands and what the heart seeks. Each narrative examines moments when ordinary life intersects with the possibility of change—whether through music's therapeutic power, storytelling's emotional release, mythical lakes that grant wishes, the simple desire to play, or unexpected discoveries about our capacity for growth. Together, these works illuminate how hope persists even in constrained circumstances, and how the search for something beyond our current reality drives both children and adults toward small acts of rebellion, imagination, and connection.

Pain of Yore (10') dir. Alisho Qonunov, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. An otherwise enthusiastic professor of literature, teaching “War and Peace”, is disheartened by an inattentive classroom, which prompts him to recall and share his own war story – a story of tragedy, despair, and pain.
Ansar (5') dir. Anuarbek Khamitov, Kazakhstan - Regional Short Fiction. Ansar, who helps his mother clean the apartment building where she works as a janitor, is torn between duty and his dream of playing soccer with friends.
Rock Berkut (11'33'') dir. Tamerlan Almanov, Kazakhstan – Regional Short Fiction. Berkut, a hyperactive boy, discovers rock music and finds unexpected calm and focus — prompting his mother to enroll him in lessons.
Once Upon a Time in Korgazhino (17'52'') dir. Aray Karimova, Kazakhstan - Regional Short Fiction. Eleven-year-old Aslan flees an autumn children’s camp after hearing of Lake Shaitankol, said to grant wishes in exchange for sacrifice — and his only wish is to bring his mother back.
The Goldfish (12'3'') dir. Aizhamal Mirbek, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Student. Sezim, a young girl, is left alone when her father - her only relative - mysteriously disappears.

Location: Cinema Four (Green), Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Category: No Other Gaze

This program brings together five films that examine the female experience through the lens of bodily autonomy, temporal anxiety, and the struggle for self-determination. These works traverse territories where women's private experiences collide with patriarchal structures—from girls forced into premature adulthood through arranged marriage and physical transformation to couples navigating medical uncertainty, from digital-age reflections on menstrual cycles and bodily ownership to visual poetry emerging from psychological confinement.

Each film reveals how women negotiate agency within systems designed to control their bodies, time, and choices. Whether confronting cultural traditions that commodify young women, fathers who remain willfully ignorant of daughters' suffering, medical institutions that measure life in six-month intervals, or digital spaces that commodify female bodies, these stories illuminate the ongoing struggle to claim ownership over one's own physical and emotional landscape. Together, they form a meditation on how women survive and resist within structures that seek to define and limit their existence.

Lukhtak (15'16'') dir. Samariddin Mukhitdinov, Tajikistan & China – Regional Short Fiction. Facing financial hardship, a Tajik family marries off their underage daughter for a bride price, trapping her and her younger sister in a generational cycle of suffering.
First Time (11'21'') dir. Meerim Dogdurbekova, Kyrgyzstan – Regional Short Fiction. A motherless girl undergoes a profound change that marks her passage into adulthood, while her father remains unaware of her physical and emotional struggles.
Xena's Body (12') dir. Occitane Lacurie – International Documentary. A reflection on the iPhone as more than a mirror—an intimate device that tracks the body while entangling knowledge, power, and desire.
A Long Letter to Love (7'25'') dir. Nika Krikun, Ukraine – International Documentary. Visual poetry in two parts discovered by the Narrator through dance. Each movement becomes a visual expression of her inner voice. The Narrator is trapped in the abandoned house of her own mind.
8:59 AM FOREVER (19'45'') dir. Ulyana Toporovskaya, Kazakhstan – Regional Documentary. Every six months, Jon and Joelle wait for the call that will decide whether they have more time together.

Location: Conference Hall, Univer Cinema, Lenin Street 43

Departure Location: Univer Cinema

Arrival Location: Naryn Regional Academic Musical Drama Theatre named after Muratbek Ryskulov

Location: Naryn Regional Academic Musical Drama Theatre named after Muratbek Ryskulov

Closing Performance "KYZ": Staged from the ancient Kyrgyz folktale Akylkarachach and proverbs dedicated to women, KYZ blends the art of Kyrgyz puppetry with the aesthetics of Japanese Kabuki to create a striking new theatrical form.

The performance honors the high status, strength, and wisdom of women in Kyrgyz culture while raising urgent issues faced by women and adolescents today. At its heart is Karachach, who, after losing her mother, grows up guided by her father’s love and the secrets of nature. Her peaceful world is shattered by the cruel Karakan, who seeks to claim her, but with courage and inherited wisdom, Karachach must fight for her destiny.

Departure Location: Naryn Regional Academic Musical Drama Theatre named after Muratbek Ryskulov

Location: UCA Dining Hall