Dinara Aprymova

A Call to Father

This is the story of a six-year-old boy who lived in a formerly prosperous mining village, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the mine was closed and his father and mother were left without work. His father earns by selling bricks of abandoned houses. The boy lives in his fictional world. He dreams about school, but he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This diagnosis is made by a local doctor at the beginning of the film. This is the beginning of his drama.

Little Brother

Yerken is nine years old and lives alone in a remote village in the mountains. When his older brother returns after a long absence, the young boy’s heart leaps with joy. But it doesn’t last long, his older brother has become a cold and heartless person… Serik Aprymov was born in 1960 in Kazakhstan and studied film at the Moscow Film School (VGIK). Along with other young directors from his country, he became part of the “new wave” of Kazakh cinema. At the Locarno Film Festival in 2004, he presented Okhotnik (The Hunter), in which a young boy suffers the contrast between the traditions of his people now on the decline and the progress of an increasingly urbanized new society.