International Competition

ULBOLSYN

• Director: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
• KAZAKHSTAN, FRANCE / 2020 / DCP / Colour / 71’ / Kazakh, Russian; Turkish s.t., English s.t.

• Screenplay: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
• Original Work: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
• Director of Photography: Azamat Dulatov
• Editing: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
• Music: Alua Orentai
• Cast: Assel Sadvakassova, Dinara Sagi, Yerbolat Alkozha, Berik Aitzhanov, Daniyar Alshinov, Sanjar Madi
• Producer: Serik Abishev, Olga Khlasheva
• Production Co.: Sunny Production, Short Brothers, Arizona Productions
• World Sales: Arizona Films

**This film is screened as part of the International Competition.**

2020 Tallinn NETPAC Prize

Ulbolsyn takes its title from its protagonist––the strong-willed and determined Ulbolsyn. When she visits her 16-year-old sister Azhar in the Karataş village where she studies, Ulbolsyn discovers that the girl was kidnapped by the local healer, a highly respected person called Doctor in the village, who claims that Azhar is promised to him as “tokal,” the younger wife. But Ulbolsyn decisively enters the struggle to save her sister and engages in a fight with the patriarchal world of Karatas which has two sets of laws––one for men and one for women. After many films about men and masculinity of his village Karatas and the surrounding area, the titular character of Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s latest feature is a woman: “It always seemed to me that women are stronger than men in everything – in morality, in feelings. And it was a pleasure for me to create a strong heroine in this film. I think that Ulbolsyn and Assel Sadvakassova, who plays her, are united by a certain inner core, they are both strong women,” says Yerzhanov. Assel Sadvakassova is also the producer of the film.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.