Tulpan
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| Tulpan | |
|---|---|
| File:Tulpan poster.jpg Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sergey Dvortsevoy |
| Written by | Sergey Dvortsevoy Gennady Ostrovskiy |
| Produced by | Karl Baumgartner, Thanassis Karathanos |
| Starring | Askhat Kuchinchirekov Samal Yeslyamova Ondasyn Besikbasov Tulepbergen Baisakalov Bereke Turganbayev Nurzhigit Zhapabayev Mahabbat Turganbayeva |
| Cinematography | Jola Dylewska PSC |
| Edited by | Isabel Meier Petar Markovic |
| Distributed by | Zeitgeist Films |
Release dates | United States: October 9, 2008 (limited) April 1, 2009 (wide) |
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | Kazakhstan |
| Languages | Kazhak and Russian (with English and French subtitles) |
Tulpan is a 2008 Kazakh comedy film. The film is directed by Sergey Dvortsevoy and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. Tulpan is Kazakhstan's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign-Language Film category
Overview
To a barren wasteland of a village, somewhere in the middle of Kazakhstan comes Asa, the film's protagonist. A recently discharged sailor for the Russian Navy, Asa comes to the Hunger Steppe where his sister Samal lives, along with her older husband, Ondas, and their three children, Beke, Maha, and little Nuka, who seems to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Asa, an angelheaded hipster, daydreams of becoming a herdsman with his own ranch. A boss who owns the land on the village decides that only established herdsman, with wives and grounded dreams may be given land to herd on. To do this Asa needs to marry his enigmatic "neighbor": Tulpan, the only woman eligible for marriage perhaps within a hundred miles. The plot of the story basically follows the trials of how Asa, his surrogate family, and his western culture loving friend Boni help and mold the realization, disenchantment, and rebirth of Asa's dreams
Awards and nominations
- Winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
- Kazakhstan's 2009 Academy Awards official submission for the Foreign-Language Film category
- Winner, Best Feature Film - Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2008
- Nominated, Achievement in Directing - Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2008
Development
Director Sergey Dvortsevoy was born in Kazakhstan, lived there for 28 years working for an aviation company, and was very familiar with Kazakhstan's countryside. In an interview at the New York Film Festival he revealed how he had always wanted to tell a story about such a barren setting. Dvortsevoy has said that the people who live in the Hunger Steppe have always intruiged him; in the interview he revealed how he has always noticed an inner balance to the people that live in this part of the world, a happiness despite subjective adversity that has always interested him. Casting for the film took many, many months, and Dvortsevy recalls having sent crews with small cameras to nearly every city in Kazakhstan in search of the right cast members. Having found them, he made the main cast (Asa, Samal, Ondas, Beke, Maha, and Nuka) live in the yurt depicted in the film for one month before filming. In the interview Dvortsevoy described his style, 20 percent of the film was scripted, the other 80 came about from the circumstances and conditions that arised on set. Dvortsevy rehearsed all of the action sequences with the animals, or on the tractor, or the action, however he made it clear that all emotional dialogue sequences were performed at the moment of the action. Some complications he had on set were with Samal, who played Asa's sister and the mother of the children; she was the only professional actess on set, having worked on stage in the theater, however at the time of filming she was only nineteen years old and had to spent much time with the children and on set doing motherly chores in the yurt to accustom herself to the role. Askhat Kuchinchirekov, the actor who portrayed Asa, was not a professional, he was actually student at one of the film schools in Kazakhstan. The three children posed problems for Dvortsevoy as well on set, seeing as how difficult it was for them to rehearse, most of all Nurzhigit Zhapabayev, the little boy who played Nuka, Dvortsevoy reffered to them as being just like one of the "animals". [1]
Reception
The film was well received. It received a 95% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review aggregator that by means of some sort of function combines all of the reviews given for one movie and spits out a final score. Roger Ebert gave it four stars and praised it in his review. Upon the film's initial release in Khazakhstan, at a special screening of 1500 people, although it was praised by the herdsman and rural folk depicted in the film, it was criticized and looked down upon by some Kazakhstan government officials, who felt that the film portrayed an even more degrading picture of Kazakhstan than Borat. Internationally the film was a great success doing well at some of the world's most prestigious film festivals. The film has been praised for it's poetic realism, the relationships and depth sustained by it's characters, the film's simplicity, patience, and care for it's subject matter, and also for it's depiction of a world that is seemingly lost in time and space, increasingly fading away more and more into the past.