Among the works nominated for best foreign language film, a story narrated by director Kučinčirekov tells of the traumas associated with the ancient custom of entrusting grandparents with the upbringing of the first or last child. It brings to the screen a comparison between the Kazakhstan of the past and that of modern times.
Astana () – The film by Kazakh actor and director Askhat Kučinčirekov Bauyryna salu (“Give it to your brother”, a way of defining “family adoption”) has been nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film. It tells of the ancient Kazakh tradition of entrusting the first or last child to the upbringing of grandfathers and grandmothers. Therefore, the child protagonist of the film finds it difficult to communicate with his father and mother, erecting a communication barrier against them.
The director describes his work as almost autobiographical, recalling the emotional traumas of loneliness experienced under the care of grandparents, and the story received high praise both at home and abroad. Last year, the work had won the award for “Best Youth Film” at the Asia-Pacific Film Awards, held in Spain. In Kazakhstan, the film has sparked a wide debate between supporters of family traditions, who maintain that the youngest should take care of the elderly and bereaved relatives, and those who are convinced that separation from natural parents It is unfair and unjustified stress.
According to ancient custom, the child is entrusted to the grandparents from the first months after birth, and only when he reaches an age between 15 and 18 years is he given the option of continuing to live with them or returning to his parents. In most cases, children remain with their grandparents, considering their biological parents as “strangers.” It is said that the motivation for this tradition is the greater experience of the elderly in raising children, which is why it was considered that they had the right-duty to take care of the first and perhaps also the second and third children, once the family was over. breastfeeding and even before, to make them worthy members of the nomadic society. Young fathers were considered unfit for this task, at least until they reached a more mature age and could take care of subsequent children.
In the story told by Kučinčirekov, little Ersultan grows up resenting in his heart the abandonment of his parents, of whom he only has an old faded photo, which he looks at every day on his way to work in the salt mines. When at the age of 12 he witnesses the death of his grandmother, he is forced to return to his father’s house, and tries to establish a true family relationship with his parents, colliding with the differences in the lifestyle of the city, after having grown up. in a more “free and natural” one in the land of the elderly. The atmosphere of the film is rather intimate and meditative, with a very immersive rhythm dictated by the thoughts of the introverted Ersultan, faced with the sudden upheaval of his existence.
The director does not appear directly in the film as an actor, but local critics assure that “his presence can be felt in every shot,” and although the practice of adoption by grandparents is no longer as widespread as it once was, many Kazakhs have become recognized in turn in the history of Ersultan, which not only refers to internal family issues and various intergenerational conflicts, but more generally to the confrontation between the Kazakhstan of the past and that of modern times, up to the present day.
Over the past 30 years, a dozen Kazakh films have been shortlisted for the Oscars, two of which, Ermek Tursunov’s Kelin in 2009, about zoomorphic and cosmic Turkish mythologies, and Sergej Dvortsevoj’s Ajka in 2018, about the life of a Kyrgyz girl illegally emigrated to Moscow, had entered the list of candidates, but did not win the prestigious award.
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