The Kazakh New Wave: Overcoming Socialist Realism in The Age of New Waves

Abstract

In 1988, Murat Auezov, the editor-in-chief at Kazakhfilm national film studio proposed its structural reformation. From now on, the studio was to be divided into two creative associations, Miras (“heritage”) and Alem (“world”, “universe”), that in the next few years would become home to a number of key films of the decade, later collectively known as the Kazakh New Wave. The former division devoted its attention to the questions of Kazakh national culture through historical, ethnographic, and folkloric films, while the latter demonstrated strong commitment to their official motto of “knowledge of the world in its motion” and encouraged production of films of modern, cosmopolitan, and all-round character. Even though the Alem and Miras associations had gradually disappeared, the emergence of these divisions at Kazakhfilm in the second half of the 1980s reveals a lasting dilemma about priorities in the Kazakh cinema industry. What themes should the Kazakh filmmakers tackle – national or universal ones? The Kazakh New Wave films that were made at those two studios were neither entirely national nor completely cosmopolitan.