Murghab
Martin Saxer, Daler Kaziev, Marlen Elders / Germany / 2019 / 81 min / Colour
Surrounded by the snow-covered crests of the Pamir, Murghab rises in the middle of an arid plateau, at 3650 meters above sea level. The Soviet Union, of which it was a part until a few decades ago, is now a distant memory, of which only statues and plaques remain, traces now faded by the cold. The result of the lengthy field work of three young anthropologists, Murghab portrays the life of a forgotten country: where once there was light, energy and heating, now it is necessary to travel kilometres just to collect the teresken, a small and resistant shrub that has become the first source of energy for the community. The directors choose to portray the everyday life of those who face the harshness of a frontier life every day: a nurse, a patient-collector and a welder who gives new shapes to the metal fragments of a bygone era. But there are not only those who survive, on the arid expanses of the Tajik heights. A teacher tells her students the history of the country: that of revolts, ruins and wars for freedom from oppressors, imagining a different future beyond the icy currents that cross her streets.
Martin Saxer
Martin Saxer is an anthropologist who earned a PhD from Oxford in 2010. He has carried out extensive research in Siberia, Tibet, Nepal and Tajikistan and since 2012 has managed the visual ethnography blog, theotherimage.com. Murghab is his third documentary.
Daler Kaziev
Daler Kaziev completed his studies at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, specialising in anthropology and deepening the theme of environmental sustainability. As part of his collaboration on the Remoteness & Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World project, his first documentary, Murghab, was born.
Marlen Elders
Marlen Elders is an anthropologist and during her studies she has experimented with creative research methods using the audiovisual arts. Since 2016 she has been part of the Remoteness & Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World research project. Murghab is her first documentary.
Credits
Sound Marlen EldersEditing Marlen Elders and Martin SaxerMusic Moritz Kunkel and Christian EcksteinMain cast Yrysbek Turdiev, Abdilda Osmonov, Kanymbyby Tagaikulova, Rasul Mamaseitov, Mayrambai Tashtanov, Aisalkyn Alieva, Hushnazar OshurovProducer Marlen Elders and Martin Saxer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich
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