Brothers

(Ifazat)

by Bakhtiar Khudoynazarov

Tajikistan

Director: Bakhtiar Khudoynazarov

Script: B. Khudoynazarov, L. Machkamow

Cinematographer: Georgi Dsalajew

Editing: Tatjana Malzewa

Sound: Rustam Achadow

Music: Achmad Bakejew

Cast: Timur Tursunow, Firus Sabaliew, N. Arifowa, I. Tabarowa, R. Kurbanow, B. Bekmurodow

Production: Tadjikfilm, Soyouzfilm

Year: 1991

Screening: 1995

35 mm, B & W, 100 min, 
OV Tajik with French Subtitles

Seventeen-year-old Farah and seven-year-old Little Fatsy are two brothers living in a small Tajik town, brought up by their grandmother since their parents separated. They decide to get to their father living in a faraway city where he works as a medical doctor in a sanatorium. To do so, they take an astonishing train through Tajikistan across hills and mountains, cities and villages, up to the Afghan boarder. After a highly adventurous trip, they finally meet their father…

Brothers is B. Khudoynazarov’s debut film shot when he was only twenty-five. It already bears the qualities of many great films: a sense of space, the art of revealing the characters, a continuity of the plot, a black and white perfect image… There are no professional actors and the dialogue is borrowed from daily life.