The former Soviet Central Asia: a geographical area that is difficult
to define. Five countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan) with Islam as their common feature. And yet they are
very different economically, ethnically, culturally and linguistically.
What are the changes that have taken place in Central Asia since
the collapse of the USSR? The old structures of the Soviet era persisted
in many cases, mutated into bizarre national-Stalinist-Moslem dictatorships,
as in the case of Turkmenistan or -in a milder, though not especially
democratic way- that of Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are,
on the other hand, two countries which, albeit through a thousand
contradictions
and restrictions, appear to be more directly inspired by the models
of Western democracies. Tiny Tadjikistan is still suffering from
the deep wounds of a civil war. And what about cinema? It is a basic
tool
in order for us to understand this new world in the first years of
their independence from the USSR; an independence which some times
was not necessarily desired.
Assuredly, it is a cinema unknown to most people, making its presence
felt on the international stage thanks to the isolated successes
of certain filmmakers and to the passion of a handful of cinephiles.
It
is a cinema which gives us the opportunity to understand the cinematic
(and existential) course of the silk roads. It is the cinema of the
steppe and its distant stars.
Undeniably, it is a cinema which did not materialize out of thin air,
but had begun to develop in the years before World War II and had its
first taste of success in the early sixties.
That which is certain is that, before the break up of the USSR, Central
Asian cinema was administered in a centralist fashion. Film directors
studied at Moscow's Film School, the celebrated VGIK, they were members
of the Filmmakers' Union and were controlled by the state. Afterwards,
in the fertile years of Perestroika, a small-scale revolution took
place, led by a group of Kazakh VGIK students.
How far will Central Asian cinema go in the next few years?
Certainly it will have to be brave and not turn in towards itself,
cloning its successes of the past decade. However, it is a cinema that
cannot exist without international collaboration. It is a cinema that
has many stories to tell and who knows how many unknown stars. Let
us hope, therefore, that in the future there will be European producers
and institutions that will be willing to turn their gaze to the East,
to the stars of the steppe.
Vincenzo Bugno
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