Archive: August, 2010
Following last week’s postcard about developments in Kyrgyz Cinema … I was intrigued to come across a news item about a young Kyrgyz born filmmaker, Dair Karakeev. The story appeared in a youth orientated newspaper, “Limon“, (“Lemon”), because although the hour and a half long film is not due to receive its premiere until September, [...]
This weekend I got a bit of a surprise and although to say that I was “gobsmacked” might be a bit of an overstatement, I was certainly taken aback.
Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, (HHGTTG or H2G2 to aficionados), may be famous for his answer to “the great question of … Life, the Universe and Everything … “, (that is: “forty-two”), but his quirky sense of humour also resulted in a number of interesting “one liners”. One of [...]
Almost two weeks ago, we marked my fifteen years here in Kyrgyzstan. Today, Saturday August 7th, we mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of our hotel, The Silk Road Lodge, here in Bishkek. Birthdays and Anniversaries are taken very seriously here in Kyrgyzstan. People like to take every opportunity for holding a celebration. When [...]
In the far off days of my youth, getting letters was something that happened quite rarely … it was quite an event. “Snail mail” was the only option open to us, (apart from the telephone, but we only got a telephone late on), and it took a couple of days for letters to arrive – [...]
Saratan is a film made in 2005 by the Kyrgyz director Ernest Abdyjaparov, with financial assistance from Germany, and distributed in the West by a German company. The film was made more than ten years after the demise of the Soviet Union - when the various socialist republics suddenly found themselves with unexpected independence – which brought with it an economic malaise following the withdrawal [...]
Beshkempir, (known in the West as “The Adopted Son”), a film by Aktan Abdikalikov and was made in 1988. It was his first feature film and has been hailed as “a worldwide success”.
Ernest Abdyjaparov was born in Bishkek in 1961. After finishing High School, in 1978, he made several applications to enter the All Union Cinematography Institute in Moscow – ironically, as it turned out, unsuccessfully. Instead, he launched himself into a varied career which included: a year with the Music School of the Osh Pedagogical Institute; [...]
Tolomosh Okeev, (1937-2001), was a film director whose output attracted admirers from abroad as well as at home. His shot his first film, “There are horses”, in 1965, and his last in 1986.
During the week I cam across a news item headed: “Initiative group translates famous Kyrgyz movies into English“. According to the article, a group of Kyrgyz citizens living abroad have put together a plan for a Festival of Kyrgyz films, and in preparation for this have already translated several films into English, such as: Gennadiy [...]
