Preview
Poet
Darezhan Omirbaev
18 Jun 2022
The event is over
Didar is a poet chained to his day job at a small newspaper. But in the era of mass consumption, few people still take an interest in poetry. Reading the story of Makhambet Otemisuly, a famous 19th-century Kazakh poet executed by the authorities, he is rattled, realising just how hard, but also how necessary his vocation is. When invited to give a lecture in a small town, he is torn between pain and joy, his accomplishments and failures.
Darezhan Omirbayev is a rare, precious kind of writer, writing and directing Kairat (Silver Leopard and FIPRESCI prize in Locarno in 1991), Cardiogram (official selection in Venice in 1995), Killer (Un Certain Regard prize in Cannes in 1998), The Road (official selection for Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2001) and Student (official selection for Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2012). He drew inspiration for Poet from Makhambet Otemisuly and Hermann Hesse’s A Night’s Work.
“With Akyn [Poet], the parsimonious Kazakh film director Darezhan Omirbayev uses a fable, in true Dostoevsky style, to wonder about the disappearance of poetry in the contemporary world. His young hero, a poet lost in an overly prosaic time, asked a monumental question at the German festival: What’s up with beauty?” Mathieu Macheret, Le Monde, 17 February 2022
Darezhan Omirbayev, Poet (Akyn), Kazakhstan, 2021, DCP, 105 min, col., original version, French subtitles.
With Yerdos Kanaev, Serik Salkinbayev, Klara Kabylgazina, Gulmira Khasanova and Bolat Shanin.
Due for release on 11 January 2023
Followed by a virtual encounter with Darezhan Omirbayev.
When
5pm - 7pm
Where
Darezhan Omirbaev, Poet, 2021
© Kazakhfilm