Four years ago, I was invited to show some of my photographs in Lugano, Switzerland. There, a strange feeling of solitude deeply infused in me, despite the presence of some curious people. I guess this violent confrontation between a fragile and idealistic world and reality can be experienced by many artists. From this stem I felt a story could grow, about the modern-day artist confronted with an eternal problem.
I must confess I always had been fascinated by the life and art of Makhambet Utemisov, a Kazakh poet of the 19th century, who rebelled against the authorities. Violently repressed, he was forced to hide with his family in the steppe. Quickly found, he was publicly decapitated and his head brought to Khan Zhangir, governor of Western Kazakhstan.
I decided to bring together this personal experience and some episodes of Makhambet's life. They belong to different times but have in common the loneliness, the inability to live a mundane life and the difficulty to see a future for one’s art.
Today people read less and spend more and more time in front of screens. But real poetry, always finds its way.
Through Makhambet I also wanted to represent the most important thing, the one that gives us some strength to live, the creative impulse. Our film is about all those fragile things.
The actors of the poet, his wife and child are the same playing the parts of Makhambet and his family. Makhambet's murderer is also mirrored in the character of a predatory businessman, to accentuate the deep connections between the lives, destinies, and inner worlds of my two main characters.
Obviously, today poetry and literature face a threat from new technologies. People read less and spend more and more time in front of different screens. But real poetry, the one we believe in, always finds its way, as an integral part of human nature.
Despite difficulties and doubts, the poet finds the strength to pursue his art. During his author’s evening in a small town, a simple encounter reassures him that the roots of true art are deeply running through the lives of ordinary people. The fate of Makhambet's poems and his memory also testify that poetry survives through the years and, sooner or later, can find its way to companion souls.
Darezhan Omirbaev
