Two early works by key Kyrgyz director Aktan Arym Kubat demonstrate the poetry of his imagery and his language.
Aktan Arym Kubat’s directorial debut, The Dog Was Running, is a collaboration with Erkin Ryspaev which launched a new era in Kyrgyz documentary filmmaking in the era of independence. The eyes of a stray dog capture a crumbling and frightening world. Military guard dogs, circus dogs with bows, show dogs with medals, fighting dogs, domestic dogs—all have an occupation and an owner. But there is no place for the stray dog in the new world and, because of human cruelty, it dies. In this film with no dialogue or voiceover, Aktan Arym Kubat explores the narrative self-sufficiency of the image.
The Swing was filmed three years later and is the first film from Aktan Arym Kubat’s autobiographical trilogy that features his son Mirlan in the lead role. An 11-year-old boy growing up by Kok Moinok Canyon is in love with a girl five years older, Aynura. She accepts his innocent childish advances: they spend a lot of time together, and he pushes her on a swing. Their idyllic life is disrupted by the arrival of a sailor, who gives Aynura a seashell and starts dating her. The boy’s heart is broken. To express his sadness, he starts drawing with charcoal on white walls.
Like The Dog Was Running, The Swing has no dialogue, which Aktan Arym Kubat explains as due to a distrust of words pronounced from screens that he developed during the late Soviet years. Central to the film are the images of a growing boy, a girl, clay mountains, white walls, and thick tree roots, on which Aktan Arym Kubat builds his identity.
The Dog Was Running won the Grand Prix at the Baku International Film Festival (Azerbaijan), an award of the Youth Union of Kyrgyzstan, and was featured in film festivals in Tours (France), Varna (Bulgaria), and elsewhere.
The Swing received the Grand Prix for best short film at the Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland), the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival in Potsdam (Germany), and a special jury mention at the International Film Festival in Turin (Italy), among other awards.
The Dog Was Running
Director: Aktan Arym Kuban, Erkin Ryspaev
Kyrgyzstan, 1990. 17 min.
The Swing
Director: Aktan Arym Kubat
Kyrgyzstan, 1993. 48 min.
18+