Cinema
Tashkent, City of Bread
Tashkent, gorod khlebnyy
Shukhrat Abbasov · 1968
Synopsis
At the end of the civil war, famine ravages Russia. Misha Dodonov, ten years old, becomes the only support of his family when his father dies. He sets off for Tashkent, where, it is said, there is still food to be found, with a comrade younger than himself. On the way, with no money, he meets people who help him and others who are less helpful, and arrives in the city to earn grain there.
Context
The film is drawn from a story by Alexander Neverov, and the screenplay is by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, then close to Tarkovsky. It was shot in black and white at Uzbekfilm, with cinematography by Khatam Faiziev and music by Albert Malakhov, and runs about a hundred minutes. Its director, in a time of relative thaw, dared to show the misery and famine that followed the revolution. The film was rediscovered in 1997 at the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, in a selection devoted to Uzbek cinema.
Who it is for
Black and white, with no French version. A story of children on the roads, which hides nothing of the hunger.
Prizes and reception
Awarded in 1969 for its direction at a review of filmmakers from Central Asia and Kazakhstan, it is praised by international critics as a jewel.
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