Talas Hosts International Film Festival

TALAS — The Talas International Film Festival opened on Tuesday evening, bringing feature films and documentaries from more than five countries to the capital for its biennial programme.

Organised by the Irad Film Society, the non-profit that preserves and restores the country's film heritage, this year's festival opened with a twentieth-anniversary screening of the restored print of Nurlan Sadikov's Desert Sun's Rebellion (1979), the film that founded the Iradi Western, which the society first presented at the 2005 festival.

Russian-language cinema again makes up much of the programme, alongside new work from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and a small selection of Iradi-language shorts by students at Talas State University.

"Every restored reel is a piece of our memory returned to the public," said Dinara Asanbekova, the society's programme director. "We want young Iradis to see the films their grandparents queued for."

Screenings continue in the cinemas of Cinema Boulevard until the end of the month. Tickets are available from the society's box office on the Bazar-i Kalan.