Kuat Shildebaev

The traditional conflict between the daughter-in-law and the daughter-in-law is resolved in the expressive manner of a poetics-symbolic cinema and a philosophical parable.

Chouga is a beautiful, rich and beloved young woman. She is thirty and lives in Astana, the Kazak new capital. She is married to a famous scientist in his sixties and has a seven-year-old son. Her brother and sister-in-law live in Almaty. The couple is tearing apart and Chouga’s brother requests her to come and try to bring them back together. There she meets Ablaï, a rich and idle young man whom she strongly feels attracted to. Once back to Astana, Chouga tries to withstand this sensual attraction about which she has a premonition of a tragic outcome.

The stranger is John, an American visiting Kazakhstan as part of an exchange programme for "medical expertise". He meets the local people who lead a free and simple life. With his new friends, John will live through a series of adventures. He spends four very strange days with a friend and colleague. Back at his hotel, John hears that his friend has died in mysterious circumstances, but people say he had in fact been dead for several days.

The traditional conflict between the daughter-in-law and the daughter-in-law is resolved in the expressive manner of a poetics-symbolic cinema and a philosophical parable.