THE GIFT TO STALIN
Podarok Stalinu

Kazakhstan, 2008, 35mm
97 minutes
Kazakh and Russian with English subtitles
Director: Rustem Abdrashev

DC PREMIERE

Sasha (Dalen Shintemirov), a young Jewish orphan, is sent into exile during a Stalinist purge. Losing his grandfather on the journey, Sasha is rescued by a gruff widowed rail worker Kasym (played by the renowned Kazakh actor Nurzhuman Ikhtimbaev). Kasym takes the boy to his remote village where Sasha becomes part of a surrogate family of other cast outs. He befriends other children and encounters an evil Russian army major and a nasty local policeman. Kasym, a Muslim living by the tenets of ethnic and religious tolerance, renames Sasha as Sabyr, meaning "humble of heart" in its Arabic origin, but the older man preserves the boy's Jewish identity. What Sasha/Sabyr finds on the lovingly-filmed, sweeping Kazakh steppes is more than survival in this lyrical story told through the poignant memories of a child. 

CO-SPONSORED BY the Embassy of Kazakhstan

SPECIAL GUESTS SPECIAL GUESTS Aliya Uvalzhanova, Producer; Boris Cherdabayev, Producer; Nurzhuman Ikhtymbayev, Actor; Yerkin Khanimolda, Chief of International Department, Aldongar Productions

Closing Night Film followed by a delicious Hanukkah party