Film archive, 2025

Kurak

Director Erke DZHUMAKMATOVA, Emil ATAGELDIEV

1Festival entries

★Avg. rating

The film opens with newsreel footage of a 2020 women’s protest in Bishkek. The rally for women’s rights is violently disrupted by opposing men, and police who had been standing by suddenly begin arresting the female protesters. From this scene symbolizing the present state of Kyrgyz women’s rights, the film crosses into fiction, layering the stories of two young women—Meerim, who secretly works as a webcam model, and Nargiza, who has just started a romantic relationship. As their stories unfold, archival footage of women’s rights exhibitions, performance art, and protests weaves through the narrative, providing context for their extreme circumstances. As suggested by the title ‘kurak,’ meaning patchwork in Kyrgyz, this film powerfully paints how the voices of various women—not just Meerim and Nargiza, but all the women in the film—break through a massive cartel of oppression, interlocking piece by piece into a single woven narrative.

Stills5

Film details

Director: Erke DZHUMAKMATOVA, Emil ATAGELDIEV
Country/Region: Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland, Serbia, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy
Year: 2025
Length: 89min
Elsewhere: Letterboxd IMDb TMDB Douban

Director

Erke DZHUMAKMATOVA

Emil ATAGELDIEV

Credits

Director: Erke DZHUMAKMATOVA, Emil ATAGELDIEV
Producer: Erke DZHUMAKMATOVA, Kairat BIRIMKULOV, Katerina TARBO-IGNATENKO, Pavel FELDMAN, Alexander SELIVERSTOV, Alexandra HOESDORFF, Désirée NOSBUSCH
Cast: Ainura KACHKYNBEK KYZY, Aliman RYSPEKOVA, Begaiym ASANAKUNOVA, Kalipa TASHTANOVA, Amangeldy ABDRAHMANOV, Atai OMURBEKOV, Talant ABDYLDAEV, Almaz RAIMZHANOV, Damira OROZBEKOVA, Maksat SABAEV
Cinematography: Erzhan ARAKEEV
Editing: Anthony AKERA
Music: Rafaelle PETRUCCI
Production company: OYMO Studio, Human films

Festival appearances1

Choose a festival entry to see its screenings, articles and audience reviews.

KurakBusan International Film Festival 2025, No. 30Vision: Asia

Festival history1

釜山国际电影节, 2025Vision: Asia, Official selectionBangladesh July Memorial PrizeVision of Jiseok Award

Film posters

Poster language