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Still from the film "Akyn (Poet)" by Darezhan Omirbayev. A woman sitting alone in an empty theatre is turned and facing the back of the room.

Sun 13.02.
20:30

  • Director

    Darezhan Omirbayev

  • Kazakhstan / 2021
    105 min. / Original version with English subtitles

  • Original language

    Kazakh, Russian

  • Cinema

    Akademie der Künste

    zu den Ticketszu dem Kalender

Didar is a poet, but he cannot live from his poetry. He has to write early in the mornings before setting out for his day job as a newspaper editor. But the sense of crisis that pervades his life is not only linked to his economic situation. At work, pessimistic discussions are held about Kazakh’s dwindling significance, dying languages and the worldwide dominance of English. Everywhere people are staring at screens. The triumph of content, commercialisation and social media is unstoppable. In a world like this, is there anyone left who’s still interested in poetry? The audience at the reading in the provinces is certainly modest at best. Omirbayev has Didar read a book about Kazakh poet Makhambet Otemisuly, which allows him to connect the two figures and to lead us away from present-day Almaty for a while and into the early nineteenth century and the Kazakh steppe, where Otemisuly’s resistance against the authorities cost him his life. Even if his own life is not at risk, Didar must decide how he will retain his dignity. (Anna Hoffmann)

Funded by:

  • Logo Minister of State for Culture and the Media