The Rough River, The Placid Sea

Colour, 35 mm
Kazakhstan, 2004, 61 min
EP – European premiere
Section: East of the West - competitive
Oficiální stránky: www.firmkino.com

Synopsis

A modern parable about three brothers whom life has divided as they each went their separate ways. Of their happy childhood and adolescent years together, only a black-and-white photograph remains, capturing the three young men at a table in front of their family home, and memories of the glasshouse that was their father’s pride. The youngest brother is now trying to seek the meaning of a dream in which he meets up once more with his two older brothers whom he hasn’t seen for years. The oldest is married but longs vainly for a child. The middle son has focused his life on spiritual meditation, and the youngest rises up against any form of authority. The conflicts, ill will and mutual lack of understanding are veiled by images of the times the boys swam in the sea together and built sandcastles. But there is still a little love left, which cannot be destroyed entirely, nor driven from the hearts of people once so tightly bound.

About the director

Marut Sarulu (1957, Talas) is a Kirghiz screenwriter and director. He studied philology at Kirghiz State University in Bishkek, where he lives, and then he continued at Moscow?s VGIK. He wrote and co-wrote six filmscripts, of which Storm Station/// (Buranny Polustanok, 1994, in coop. with Chingiz Aitmatov) won the Golden Camera award at the Berlin IFF in 1996, and the film The Adopted Son (Beshkempir, 1998, in coop. with A. Abdykalykov and A. Alisherov, co-prod. with France) won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno IFF, the Grand Prix at the Eurasia FF in Almaty and other international awards. His first feature film In spe was made in 1993, followed by My Brother Silk Road (Altyn Kyrghol, 2001), which was screened at the KV IFF in 2002 in the section East of the West. The film won numerous awards, including the Grand Prix at the 24th 3 Continents Film Festival and a Grand Prix at the International Asian Film Festival in Vesoul, France, in 2003.