Filmmaker Attending.
The Song of the Tree is the first musical film ever made in Kyrgyzstan. When hot-tempered Esen is expelled from his clan, he tries to run away with the beautiful Begimai, daughter of the headman, but her father's henchmen catch them and leave him for dead. All alone, Esen's journey for love and revenge begins. Director Aibek Dairbekov says, "The film is adapted from real stories that my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child. These stories are mythical and realistic at the same time – men have the same feelings of love, hate, envy, pride, or self-sacrifice, now and a few hundred years ago. The film doesn't use special effects but relies on the power of music. Songs are used when words are lacking. I shot this film with the same love and fascination as that of a boy listening to the stories of his grandma."
Director Biography
Song Of The Tree marks director Aibek Dalyrbekov's feature debut. Previously, Dalyrbekov worked in television, serving as a director on the series Gorod Mechty (2009) and as a screenwriter for Gaishniki (2010).
Press
"Set amongst a nomadic community in 18th-century Kyrgyzstan, the film is a simple story well told, partly through song — a kind of high-plains Fiddler on the Roof, but with a spare, direct sensibility to match the wind-scrubbed Central Asian landscape." - Hollywood Reporter
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