Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2018 • Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s king of the offbeat and the absurd, Adilkhan Yerzhanov is at his lyrical best in this tale of innocence corrupted. When her father commits suicide, country girl Saltanat (Dinara Baktybayeva) is forced to travel to the city in search of the money that will spare her mother from jail. Accompanied by her childhood friend (and ardent admirer) Kuandyk (Kuandyk Dyussembayev), Saltanat soon learns how wide the gap between her ideals and the reality of contemporary Kazakhstan truly is. Yerzhanov’s trademarks – exquisite tableaux, deadpan humour, and humanist heart – are coupled here with a meta-cinematic riff on the western, the noir, and the French New Wave.

THE GENTLE INDIFFERENCE OF THE WORLD • ЛАСКОВОЕ БЕЗРАЗЛИЧИЕ МИРА
Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Written by Roelof Jan Minneboo and Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Cinematography by Aydar Sharipov
Music by Nurassyl Nuridin
Starring: Dinara Baktybayeva, Kuandyk Dyussembayev

In Russian and Kazakh with English subtitles

Nominated in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, 2018.