Original title: Горный лук
Genre: Drama / Comedy
Director: Eldar Shibanov
Country: Kazakhstan
Year of production: 2022
Czas: 90 min
Awards and nominations:
2022 Venice Film Festival: HFPA Special Prize
It might seem there’s no duller place than deep in the province on the China–Kazakhstan border. Especially when you’re an 11-year-old boy who, along with his sister one year his junior, spends his days picking up wild mountain garlic. The only attraction is watching lorry drivers stopping by a near petrol station in the centre of the village to pay for sex with local women. The boy is taken aback when in one of the ladies he recognises his own mother getting out of the lorry cabin of “uncle” Witia’s. “Uncle” is a well-known ladies’ man with a reputation of being rather worldly, so no wonder it’s difficult to resist his charms. Still, the boy can’t accept the fact that his father, an ecologist and idealist who abandoned a city years ago to live in this God-forsaken village, is losing the battle against someone like Witia. He believes the only solution is giving his father a miracle-working “golden viagra”. And it can be only obtained on the other side of the border… Eldar Shibanov skilfully shifts from drama to grotesque, thus making his film both entertaining and moving. He tells a story of a break-up of a marriage which gives up when faced with everyday life. For Ajbek’s wife, his noble ideas are only a whim masking his lack of resourcefulness, and an escape from responsibility. It’s astounding how universal and wise a tale taking place in such an exotic surrounding can be.
Author: Sebastian Chosiński
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Eldar Shibanov – born in1986, he’s been working in the film industry since he was 18. Mainly thanks to his mother Julia Lewicka who is an art director, producer, and screenwriter. He debuted in 2021 with an independent drama “Kiss-in”. “Mountain Onion” is his first mainstream film.
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