Sherali Abdulkajsov

Echoes of the October Revolution finally reach remote Central Asian mountain hamlets.

The film's protagonist Valera - cheerful guy from Moscow, who at age 19 learned a whole hell of war in Afghanistan, where he lost a leg. Returning from the war, he had no idea what a nightmare for him is just beginning.

The unborn child of Mamlakat is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a travelling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and gets her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.

The hero of this lyrical and optimistic story, former front-line soldier Shodi Makhmadaliev, has worked as a shepherd for many years. He loves his work. Yet life, surprisingly, is not easy even here in the степь. And when things grow especially heavy on the old soldier’s heart, he turns to the memories of his wartime years and holds on to hope—for something better, something worthy of the memory of his friends who never returned from the front…

More than 50 years back in a stony set of a remote mountainous village somewhere in Tajikistan the lovers called Shams and Mekhri traveled. Mekhri pulled by a transient eclipse broke an oath of marital faithfulness that overnight transformed Sham's existence into a farcical puppet show, leading to a murder of his spouse.

The story of Nisso, an ordinary girl from a remote village in the Pamir Mountains, whose youth coincided with the turbulent years of the revolution.