Wind Man

Director: KHUAT AKHMETOV

Echoing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings,” this intriguing fable opens with an elderly, winged gentleman crash landing in a small village on a forgotten stretch of the Kazakhstan steppes.

The townspeople, full of oddballs, don’t know quite to make of this feathered interloper, seen as a demon Satan: some want to kill him, some want to study him, and others would just as soon have the vagrant parasite be on his way. Once the novelty wears off, the mysterious “Wind Man” (could be an angel in disguise) is left with only one friend, a small boy who harbors dreams of flight.

Filmed in vibrant colors with a largely nonprofessional cast, with one of the most imaginative scripts in the fest and an “Alice in Wonderland” logic from another world, “old granddaddy wind” is a first feature by a 60-year-old ex-ad man. Wind Man provides a glimpse into a culture and history rarely seen in films.

RUSSIA • 2007 • 98 MINUTES • DIRECTOR: KHUAT AKHMETOV