Coming of Age Day

[День совершенолетия]

Kazakhstan. 2001. 10 min. Color
Russian dialogue.
Written and Directed: Mukhamed Mamyrbekov
Camera: Renat Kosai
Edited: Dinagul' Bersugur
Artistic director: Serik Aprymov
With Aiym Ibragimova, Ulzhan Kuraisova

Two friends, living in a student dormitory, decide to throw a party to celebrate the fact that one of them is turning 18. After an emergency visit to the dentist and the need to pay for anesthesia wipe out their entertainment funds, the resourceful girls decide to collect all of the empty liquor bottles on the balcony of the dormitory and to sell them to the recycling center in order to buy beer for their party. All of the girls' solutions, however, carry the seeds of new problems. The party never happens, but the girls' bonding marks their transition to adulthood.

The film is both a wistful comedy of errors and an understated celebration of closeness and friendship.

The film was screened at the Fifth Film Forum of the CIS, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (Moscow, 2001) and the Third Festival "Look in a New Way" (Almaty, 2001).

Director

Mukhamed Mamyrbekov was born in 1971 on a sovkhoz in the Chimkentskii region of Kazakhstan. He studied at the national film school in Kazakhstan, KazGITiK named for T. Zhurgenev.

Filmography