 Heavily indebted to Italian neo-realism, this short film features an almost all-child cast, for which reason it won the Prize for Best Director of a Children ’s Film at Bastau-87 festival (Alma Ata). The boy playing the lead role also won Special Awards at the 7 th Youth Film festival (Molodost') in Ukraine.
The film, based on motifs in O. Demetrashvili’s short story “The Sweet Prize,” is a psychological portrait of the interaction of a group of adolescents, one of whom knuckles under to the pressure of his playmates and, at great peril, steals money from his cruel stepfather to bet on the boys’ soccer game. Edited for maximum tension, the hero’s salvation becomes a matter of split-second timing.
Talgat Temenov
Born in the village of Malybai (in the Almaty region) in 1954, Temenov graduated from the acting department of the Almaty Conservatory in 1976. He was admitted to Sergei Solov'ev’s master class for Kazakh Filmmakers at the State Institute for Filmmaking (VGIK) in Moscow in 1986. His two short films Where Are You, Chapai? and Toro won several awards at international film festivals. From 1994 to 2000 Temenov was the rector of the first film school in Kazakhstan, the Zhurgenov Theater and Cinema Institute. In 1998 he was named a People’s Artsist of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 
Filmography :
1983: The House (short)
1984: Where Are You, Chapai (short)
1987: Toro (short)
1988: A Wolf Cub Among People
1991: Moving Target
1993: Love Station
1998: Execution After Death
2005: Nomad (co-directed Ivan Passer and Sergei Bodrov)
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This series is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Film Studies Program. It was made possible by the support of the Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and it would not have been possible without the generosity of Forrest Ciesol. |
