New Kazakh drama film The Crying Steppe had its’ Online World Premiere as part of the Asian World Film Festival’s special Sneak Screenings series on November 6, 7 and 8, 2020.
Watch the Trailer here:
The Crying Steppe is based on true events that befell the indigenous population of Kazakhstan during the 1920s and 1930s, when 8.5 million people died from hunger during the Great Famine, artificially imposed on the country by the Bolsheviks. The film tells the story of an eagle hunter named Turar and his wife Nuriyo who overcome blind fear of death and despair in an attempt to save their desperate family and village inhabitants from dying of hunger during the tragic and heart-breaking events occurring in the Kazakh Steppe, which eventually forced 1.5 million people to leave their native homeland.
This is the first time a feature film has ever accurately depicted one of the most catastrophic periods in the history of Kazakhstan, a country which, unknown to many people, has suffered a number of tragic and shocking events throughout its history. The events depicted in the film have been kept a secret from the world until now.
At a time when wheat grains were more expensive than human life, the Holodomor “Murder by Hunger” affected many of the Soviet Union republics, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Bashkiria, Tatarstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, with over 47 million Soviet people suffering death or severe, acute malnutrition during the ten years of famine.
“The Crying Steppe is a film interwoven with the life stories of real people who survived a terrible, human tragedy,” says the film’s award-winning director, Marina Kunarova. “What was really terrible about that time was the death of spirituality. The crackdown on free thinking and annihilation of ethnic culture and human values led to spiritual starvation and the killing of the soul. And the fear still remains.
It has changed its form but is still very much alive. The film raises the question of “why?” Why did our forefathers have to pay such a terrible price? And why, up until now, have we been afraid to admit what really happened and, instead, conceal our tragic history from the rest of the world? Even today, this topic is still prohibited in our country. We speak about it in whispers, with society pretending not to remember or acknowledge our past. I hope that through this film we can keep alive a tiny glimmer of hope that all is not lost and that we can eventually get our spirituality back.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks and and gratitude to two organizations, the American Relief Administration (ARA) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) who helped save more than 10 million people from starving to death during this period and whose work was never acknowledged by the communist regime of the USSR. We would like to express our gratitude to the countries who helped Kazakhstan during this tragedy.”
Germany, France, Italy, England, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, and all other EU as well as U.S, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and other countries who helped by providing food and/or accepting refugees who were forced to leave their homeland.
For the producer of The Crying Steppe, Yernar Malikov, the film was a passion project.
“The making of this film was a deeply personal experience for me,” he says. “It was so important for me to ensure that these tragic events were brought to the attention of a wide, global audience on the big screen that I even sold a number of properties to ensure that this was achieved!”
The Crying Steppe stars both new and established actors and a limited release of the film is planned for early December 2020 in Kazakhstan. Work is currently underway on international distribution and festival submission.
