Tulpan

Sergey Dvortsevoy was born in 1962 in Chimkent in Kazakhstan. He graduated from the school of aeronautics in Ukraine and the radiotechnical institute in Novosibirsk. He was an Aeroflot manager before registering at the VGIK. In the 1990s Sergey Dvortsevoy was a key figure in Russian cinema. His documentaries Paradise and Bread Day in 1995, Highway in 1999 and In the dark in 2008 were acclaimed by audiences and critics alike from different nationalities and continents. Tulpan, which was finished in 2008, is his first feature."Tulpan was filmed in the south of Kazakhstan, in a region called Betpak. This represents a large part of the steppe, occupied only by shepherds. It is in the middle of nowhere and the closest town in Chimkent, 500 km away. The shoot took 3 years with pauses. In all we must have spent a whole year filming. (...) There are still many nomadic families in Kazakhstan. It is very close to the life that Samal and Ondas lead in the film, that many consider as a modern life. But there are other types of nomads. Very few have their own cattle and most are hired by big owners to take care of their sheep. They all still live in yurts and cover hundreds of kilometres a day. Some are very poor. The film gives a very realistic vision of the actual situation. Most young people want to live in the town because they think it is better. But at the end of the day they end up in cities like Chimkent, waiting for jobs that will never come. They end up as construction workers or temping when they have no qualifications. Young people like Asa and Boni would have no future there."