ABEL, 2024
Feature film, 120 min
Director: Elzat Eskendir
Production: Kazakhfilm, Tanaris
Original score: Akmaral Mergen
Busan International Film Festival, New Currents competition (2024)
Göteborg Film Festival
Kazakhstan's submission for the 99th Academy Awards, Best International Feature Film
1993. As the collective farm is dissolved and its livestock divided, the herder Abel tries to hold on to a way of life in a world turning to capitalism.
Abel is set in 1993, when a new era arrives without promise. At the centre of the score is the qyl-qobyz, which here cannot be heard as anything but zar: the voice that breaks through grievance and suppression.