After the great success of Afghan, Buddhist and Bangladesh film festivals, the Pune International Centre (PIC) is set to screen 13 films from Kazakhstan. The festival opens with the film Tulpan, Kazakhstan’s official entry for the 2009 Academy Awards, and winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

A still from Gift for Stalin

The four-day festival presents a unique opportunity for film buffs to watch some splendid films from Kazakhstan. Latika Padgaonkar, founder member of PIC, says that most of these films have been critically acclaimed and were made after Kazakhstan got its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, thus presenting a unique perspective into the country and its growth as an independent nation. “We feel that after getting independence all goes fine, but it is not that way,” she says.