>> Catalog 2003

Ordo

KYRGYZSTAN / 2002 / Kyrgyz / Color / Video / 12 min

Directors: Temirbek Birnazarov, Emil Jumabaev
Script: Temirbek Birnazarov
Photography: D. Aktanov
Producer: A. Jusupaliev
Production Company, Source: Cinema Company Tazar
Bishkek 720030, str D Asanova 1 KYRGYZSTAN
Phone: 996-312-25-46-51
Fax: 996-312-66-63-34
E-mail: birnaz@mail.ru

“That’s it, there.” “Great shot!” “That wasn’t so good.” There is no dialogue in this short film, but it is as if we hear exchanges like this from the screen. On the thawing ground, two men draw a big circle and set a collection of bones in the middle. At first it looks like a ritual, as these grown men wearing their unique hats throw rocks to hit the bones with utmost seriousness. This is the game of Ordo, cherished by the Kyrgyz people for centuries, where luck and guts make all the difference. The game, bodies, and emotions heat up, as players’ voices rise and their movements become animated. They are really having fun. Boys follow the progress of the game, anxious for a chance to play. Bits of facial expressions and physical gestures show people enraptured by the spell of Ordo.

[Director’s Statement] Ordo. Like an extraterrestrial ESPN transmission. This documentary about the Kyrgyz national sport cheerfully disposes all familiar expository conventions of ethnography, substituting something that is far more rich and strange, and at the same time more profoundly and recognizably human.

Temirbek Birnazarov Born in 1964 in Kyrgyz. Graduated in 1993 from the producer’s faculty at the Almaty Institute of Theatre and Cinema. Same year, made an award-winning fictional short Don’t Cry, Rhinoceros!, which was shown at the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival, the Vila Do Conde International Short Film Festival, and the Montecatini International Short Film Festival. Films include The Devil’s Bridge (1996), shown at YIDFF ’97 (won the Special Mention award), the narrative film The Melody of Forgotten Island (1997), and Jaiyk (1998), shown at YIDFF ’99. In 2002 made The Sun Will Rise Again and Earrings. Emil Jumabaev Born in 1971 in Bishkek, Kyrgyz. His first film before working with Temir was The End of the Century (1998).