About

This screening will be introduced by Rob Hughes, Australian Cinémathèque.

One of cinema’s most extraordinary epics, The Fall of Otrar depicts the siege of the Central Asian city of Otrar by Genghis Khan’s rampaging forces in the early 13th Century. Directed by Kazakh debutant Ardak Amirkulov and co-written by Soviet filmmakers Aleksei German and Svetlana Karmalita (Hard to Be a God 2013), the film is a uniquely immersive experience, filled with breathtaking battle scenes and underscored by an elegiac melancholy for a lost culture. Newly restored under the supervision of its director, The Fall of Otrar is a hypnotising vision of a brutal and bloodsoaked world, where the hubris of those at the top doom those who live below them.

Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with Ardak Amirkulov. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Ages 15+