IFFI Kurzfilme Curated by Qyzqaras Film Festival

ERTAK (2023, Uzbekistan)
Kamila Rustambekova
A young gay man lives with his mother in an Uzbek village. The neighbours gossip, and his mother avoids going out in public. This presents her son with a difficult choice: only by leaving his mother behind and leaving the country can he find freedom and safety.

TRUSIŠKA (SCAREDY-CAT) (2025, Kazakhstan)
Assel Aushakimova
A politician is rehearsing a speech at home: as a family man and champion of traditional values, he advocates for the law against so-called ‘LGBT propaganda’ – which has now come into force. Just how much he lives by what he preaches becomes clear when a young man turns up at his flat.

NAD GORODOM (ABOVE THE CITY) (2025, Kazakhstan/Russia)
Malika Mukhamejan
Shy Aidana starts at a new school, where the popular Jenya takes her under her wing. With her, Aidana discovers new aspects of life. Her conservative parents aren’t pleased, but their daughter has found herself – and her resolve is as clear as the lake above the rooftops of Almaty.

VOICELESS (2025, Kyrgyzstan)
Saadat Sataeva
The already complicated model of a long-distance relationship seems an almost impossible undertaking, with the partners living in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, which is under attack from Russia. Cautious, without showing faces, VOICELESS is a small monument to love in the face of war and queerphobia.

UNKNOWN HOMELAND (2026, Kazakhstan/Germany)
Mirta Kamil
When your ‘own’ country excludes you because of the way you live, your attachment to home turns into a love-hate relationship. Against a backdrop of mysterious, picturesque black-and-white images of steppes, railway tracks and industrial sites, a voiceover speaks of the necessity to leave and the secret longing to return.

THE FIRST YEAR OF YOUR LIFE (2026, Argentina/Kazakhstan/Germany)
Mirta Kamil
A split screen. On the left, the view from a moving train; on the right, a new life: as a queer parent with a female partner, the filmmaker has changed all the names here and tells the story of the young family’s flight from repression: from Russia to Kazakhstan, then to Argentina.