Returnee

A story of re-migration in politically volatile times. We are tracing the path of an ethnically Kazakh family, who are returning to their homeland from the Afghan province of Kundus. Since Kazakh independence in 1991, this has become possible. The family’s grandfather fled the Stalinist terror in the 1930s to Afghanistan. His son, Saparkul, fought as a Mujahideen in the Afghan-Soviet war. He and his wife have a daughter, who lost her voice in a traumatic situation, when she trod on a landmine. Now they have received their documents to re-migrate, and start on the long and arduous journey across the mountains to Kazakhstan. They come to a holding camp near the border. While they are at the evening film screening in a tent there, they become witness to the execution of an “unbeliever”. Soon after, they seem to have made it. In an emotionally touching scene, the grandfather kisses the Kazakh ground just behind the border, with two young border guards watching. A lengthy train journey finally takes the family to Baikonur. It remains to be seen, however, if this is really the “promised land”. How is Saparkul going to feed his family? In Afghanistan, his job was to call believers to prayer in the mosque. There is no mosque here. “And what does your wife do?” the suspicious major asks. He replies that she does not have a job, and that his daughter cannot go to school. “This is Kazakhstan, not Afghanistan. We are no longer in the Middle Ages,” the major replies. It is going to take a while until the family feels they have arrived back home. That they will make it, difficulties notwithstanding, is what this visually dramatic and emotionally touching film conveys in long and patient shots. It takes its time for the characters, who, with skeptical view of this “new” old homeland, open up a vast visual space. (Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg)