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Kinds of Remembrance

Tea for Two
Aidana Kuanova, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom, 2025, 5 min. Kazakh with English subtitles

Тоодо эмес, же ойдо эмес (Neither on the Mountain, nor in the Field)
Gulzat Egemberdieva, Kyrgyzstan, 2022, 15 min. Kyrgyz with English subtitles

The Garden Had Not Disappeared
Helena Aljona Kyn, Germany, 2025, 16 min. English, Russian

 مەن بار (I AM HERE)
Sonya Imin, Belgium, Central Asia, 2024, 24 min, Uighur with English subtitles

I am not where you think I am. I am where you think I am not
Anna Salt Salome Zatsarinna, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, 2024, 12 min, English with subtitles

Whose Voice Is This?
Dana Iskakova, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, DAVRA Research Collective, and Goethe-Institute Uzbekistan. Germany, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. 2024. 14 min. Kazakh, Russian with English subtitles 

Followed by a talk with Temur Umarov and Dr. Aksana Ismailbekova

The festival’s most “at-the-crossroads” program connects different kinds of remembrance in which personal and collective memories intersect and bring up questions about identity, home, and belonging. (CASFF)

Tea for Two:Slipping into a teacup, a little girl journeys through shifting tides of memory and identity. Between familial gestures and forgotten selves, she searches for something both lost and deeply her own.

Тоодо эмес, же ойдо эмес (Neither on the Mountain, nor in the Field): An interchange of experiences between a group of Pamir Kyrgyz nomads who recently left their Afghan “roof of the world,” a Kyrgyz village inhabitant, and myself, caught between village, capital city, and the West.

The Garden Had Not Disappeared: In Kazakhstan, every house has a domovoi, a ghost that guards it. When the family leaves the house, it accompanies them. But when the family is separated, the ghost haunts them in their dreams night after night. Childhood memories and family biography interweave in a magical, mystical atmosphere. Much has passed, but the garden remains as a silent witness to these stories.

 مەن بار (I AM HERE): On the set of the first Uyghur film produced outside of the homeland, Guzel and Mukaddas navigate the complexities of identity, exile, and womanhood through the transformative power of storytelling.

I am not where you think I am. I am where you think I am not: The film creates a territory where memory becomes an active spatial element: the past and present intersect, and the physical landscapes of Almaty blend with metaphysical experiences and recollections. Filmed in Kazakhstan and edited in Ukraine, the film reflects the impact of military conflicts on the author's psychological state, shaping the fear of losing home and the “inner Kazakhstan.”

Whose Voice Is This?: This film traces the shifting soundscapes of Central Asian cinema (1960s–1990s), revealing how dubbed voices, music, and silence echo Soviet ideologies and the rise of new freedoms.

Temur Umarov is a fellow at The Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center

Dr. Aksana Ismailbekova is a Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO).

The discussion takes place with institutional support from the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS).
28.09.2025
Tea for Two
Neither on the Mountain, nor in the Field
The Garden Had Not Disappeared
I AM HERE
I am not where you think I am. I am where you think I am not
Whose Voice Is This?