Без страха

Set in late-1920s rural Uzbekistan amid Soviet “unveiling” campaigns, a young Soviet officer is tasked with modernizing a village and encouraging women to remove the veil. When a teenage Komsomol girl publicly burns her paranja, reform collides with tradition and religious authority, with tragic consequences. Khamraev’s film remains a keystone of Uzbek cinema for its complex portrait of “emancipation” as imposition, and the costs borne by women’s bodies.