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Last January, Alla Verlotsky of Seagull Films took a trip home to Central Asia in search of the best the region’s cinematic tradition had to offer. In a region not quite Asian, Middle Eastern or Russian, Verlotsky and her friend Kent Jones of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center (Filmlinc) discovered a beautiful cinematic identity reaching across religion, culture and tradition.
Less than three months later, a complete concept with a viable list of films was developed and offered to Filmlinc as “Films from along the Silk Road.” This series is now gracing New York during the month of May with its montage of old and new, traditional and progressive, and uniquely artistic films.
The series highlights 40 films from the five “Stans”: Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Called the Silk Road for the great trade route that ran through the region, the series features films mostly unheard of to a Western audience. In fact these films are probably the first comprehensive retrospective to come from the five “Stans”.
Verlotsky says that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the distribution and promotion of films from Central Asia also was lost. But these countries were making films as early as 1897, though only audiences in that region were privy to watching them.
For example, a Tashkent studio established in Uzbekistan in 1924 produced numerous propaganda films urging “Islamic women to take off their veils, study in schools and be useful to the Communist society,” Verlotsky says. Though these films played around the region, they encountered stiff resistance in Uzbekistan from the local Muslim community, she adds.
These themes of “communizing” Muslim and other communities in Central Asia are echoed in some of the fascinating films featured in the series. One such is Ali Khamraev’s 1972 film, “Without Fear.” The movie follows an Uzbek Red Army officer’s attempt at modernizing a local village by encouraging women to unveil. One young woman sets the example causing a turn of “tragic encounters”.
Another film of interest to Muslim audiences is Jamshed Usmonov’s 1998 movie “The Flight of the Bee”. Called “a fable of new Tadjikistan,” the film focuses on a gentle Muslim headmaster who wants his family to be left alone. To his chagrin a wealthy businessman moves in and starts a feud that serves as a metaphor for the rampant capitalism that obliterated old values after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Such films highlight the vast cultural differences and artistic nuances central to the films of the Silk Road series. The plots, themes and cinematography are uniquely different from the Western film industry. The brochure for the series says the films are “worth the effort.”
What that means, Jones says, is that sometimes “audiences resist things which require them to shift or expand their frame of reference. It's a pretty natural impulse, to stay with what you know. These are movies that will be like a bolt from the blue for many people — cinematically, culturally.”
The “Films from along the Silk Road” will be airing in New York through the month of May at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. In June and July the series will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago, then onto the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. in September and October. Verlotsky is working to bring the series to other U.S. cities as well. She hopes to complete commercial DVD distribution for some of the films after the series ends, or at the very least select distribution for collegiate study.
For more information about the series, email Verlotsky at Seagullfilms@att.netor call the Walter Reade Theater in New York at 212-875-5600.
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