Aura was one the many documentaries made during the early years of perestroika that cast a critical eye on pressing social issues that had previously been ignored by the moribund Soviet documentary film industry. Among these films were Juris Podniek ’s Is It Easy to be Young? (1986) , which examined alternative youth cultures; Tat'iana Chubakova’s The Homecoming (1987) about Afghan war vets; Hertz Frank’s Final Verdict (1987) about the death penalty; Vladimir Shevchenko’s Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks (1988) about the nuclear disaster in Ukraine; and Tofik Shakhverdiev’s Stalin is With Us? (1989), which followed a group of ardent Stalinists.

Aliev’s film, Aura, addressed perhaps the most explosive social problem that faced the Soviet Union after the many years of politically imposed constraints were lifted: drug addiction. The film is a polemical examination of narco-business and the new narco-mafia in Central Asia, linking them to governmental agencies.

The film won First Prize at the Tempere ( Finland) Festival for Short Films in 1989 and a Special Prize in the Panorama program of the Berlin Festival (1989). It is also one of the very few films that was “shelved” during perestroika, precisely when the Conflicts Commission was releasing hundreds of other films that had been “shelved” during the Stagnation years. All prints in Turkmenistan were destroyed.