Program Note
Tima, Kair, and Rus are old friends living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and are petty thieves dealing in stolen cellular phones. They are getting too old to be called bad boys: Kair is about to get married because his girlfriend is pregnant, while Tima wants to leave his hometown to pursue the American dream. What they need is good chunk of money to turn their lives around. One day, their Kyrgyzstani partner in the stolen phone business gives them some good weed, and the trio meet a dangerous crime boss and agree to smuggle weed across Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border for him. Drug trafficking might be a banal and familiar topic, but here it’s fresh and original when it is set on the Steppes. The sunset is breathtakingly beautiful, and the greenhouse filled with marihuana seems dreamlike. You might even feel and smell the crap when a lamb eats the marihuana and poops. Having written the story as a web-drama, the director made it a successful debut feature, a blend of buddy movie, road movie and coming-of-age drama, rather than a simple crime movie. (Creta D. KIM)