World of Wonder

"The only way to make a movie like this is if you love the place." - Sergei Dvortsevoy, director of Tulpan

Distinguished by its warm and humorous treatment of its characters and its string of spectacular long-takes that capture the unruly weather conditions of Kazakhstan's Hunger Steppe, Tulpan transcends its folktale conventions and becomes an energetic and revelatory immersion into the daily life of nomadic Kazakh sheep herders.  Don't miss this remarkable film on Wednesday and Thursday, September 9-10 at 7:00pm, with post-film discussions by Peter Gardner, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at MU (and, as usual, beverages beforehand).

"Tulpan has just about everything anyone could want in a movie," writes Amy Taubin in Artforum: "wild swings of mood and weather, generational and cultural clashes, epic vistas of land and sky, fragile connections among humans and animals, the struggle for survival in a harsh environment, and the yearning of a young man for autonomy and a piece of the land of his birth. In a film packed with emotion, there is not a trace of sentimentality, perhaps because Dvortsevoy is a superb dialectician with a sense of humor that is both absurdist and tender."