Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan & India
The first installment of Filmatique’s Foreign Language Oscar Submissions series features films from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and India.
Chaitanya Tamhane's first feature Court dismantles the labyrinthine structure of India's legal system, tracing the case of a folk singer accused of abetting a stranger's suicide through one of his performances. Akan Satayev's The Road to Mother offers a resonant perspective on motherhood in a decades-spanning narrative set in Kazakhstan. Sergey Dvortsevoy's ebullient narrative debut Tulpan captures the rhythms of nomadic existence on a serene, isolated stretch of the Kazakh steppes; Byambasuren Davaa’s The Cave of the Yellow Dog explores the tensions between tradition and modernity on the Mongolian highlands. Afia Nathaniel's Dukhtar embarks on a journey through northern Pakistan, as a desperate mother flees everything she has known in a perilous attempt to save her daughter from an arranged marriage.
In the 64 years since the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film has existed, only 28 nations have ever been represented onstage. Mongolia has submitted a film six times, and Pakistan ten—neither have been nominated. With dozens of submissions, India has been nominated just three times. Kazakhstan has submitted 12 films to the Oscars since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991—the nation was nominated for the first and only time in 2007, for Sergei Bodrov's Mongol.
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The Cave of the Yellow Dog
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Byambasuren Davaa • Mongolia-Germany • 2005
Nansal is the eldest daughter of a nomadic family. One the way home from school one day, she happens upon a black and white puppy, naming him Zochor (Spot). Her father immediately refuses to allow the dog to stay, however, fearing that i...
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Court
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Chaitanya Tamhane • 2014 • India
A folk singer must navigate contemporary India's labyrinthine legal system.
By day, Narayan Kamble teaches young children poetry at a local school; in the evenings he performs folk songs at political protests, lamenting the lack of social mobility...
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Dukhtar
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Afia Nathaniel • Pakistan • 2014 • A thrilling journey focalizing the social issue of child brides.
Allah Rakhi lives in the Hunza Valley with her husband, a local tribal leader, and their ten-year-old daughter Zainab. Violence has plagued their community for some time, due to a ...
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The Road to Mother
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Akan Satayev • Kazakhstan • 2016
1922. A boy, Ilyas, is born to a nomadic family in the Kazakh steps. Some years later, soldiers arrive to enforce Soviet the policy of collective farming, polarizing the community among those who welcome change, and those who don't. Ilyas's fami...
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Tulpan
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Sergey Dvortsevoy • 2008 • Kazakhstan
Tulpan captures the rhythms of nomadic existence in a surreal and barren landscape, revealing a starkly beautiful, if not vanishing way of life
Upon completion of his Russian naval service, Asa returns to the windswept Kazakhstani steppe wher...
