FREEFORUM

Festival starts on Friday. Cinema Boulevard, the Archive cinematheque and two of the old halls. The usual: a lot of Russian-language films, a restored print or two, guests who may or may not get visas. Permits for two screenings arrived three days ago. Business as usual.

Who is coming? I am going to everything. Obviously.

Is any of it in the hall that is now a shoe shop? No? Then I will come on Sunday.

Drove from Nurzhan for a Russian film I could have watched in Nurzhan. Worth it for the walk down Cinema Boulevard at night. Talas does have one thing.

Closing night. Attendance is down again. Sixty-two thousand admissions in 2005, the year they opened with the restored Desert Sun's Rebellion. I was there. We sat on the steps. This year I had a row to myself twice.

2015 edition. Three foreign guests cancelled over visas. The Society says "travel difficulties related to status". Translation: nobody knows what passport to stamp.

The Film Festival is Russian soft power paid by NurGaz. Every Russian film is Bekzatov waving at you from the screen. You people are eating propaganda with popcorn and calling it culture.

Ak, there is no popcorn. The machine has been broken since 2009.

First festival without Sadikov. They closed with Desert Sun's Rebellion. Thirty-one people in the hall. I counted, because what else do you do.

I was one of the 31! The visa took four months and a letter from a man in Bishkek. The well scene with no words: the whole hall, all 31, did not breathe. Worth every stamp.

2019. Sarybaev retrospective. They put his face on the poster and people came. People under fifty, even. Best year since I joined this forum.

honest question: is diz better? everyone i know in talas only goes to diz lol

Diz is in summer, in the citadel courtyards, on carpets, subtitles in Iradi and English, teahouses open till late. Yes, Diz is better. Do not tell the Society I said this.

2021. They screened a print of Zarina with Russian subtitles burned in. In Talas. In 2021. I stayed anyway. Sarybaev doesn't need subtitles.

The Herald has the numbers. Well under half of 2005. Weekday screenings with fewer than twenty people. I was at one with eleven. By the end we all knew each other's names. Possibly the best festival experience I've had.

Herald: Film festival audiences fall again. Nobody goes because nothing is allowed to be shown. They will write the same headline in 2025.

found this thread late. sorry kino. the students go to diz, it's in iradi. and most of us didn't know the september one existed until your post. also october happened

2025. I am going every day. If it dies, it dies with me in row seven.

I'll come Saturday and bring kimchi. If it dies it will not die hungry.

IradOne, very investigative: Talas hosts international film festival. Yes. It does. Every odd year. Thank you.