Film· 2008· Comedy

Тюльпан (Tulpan)

by Sergey Dvortsevoy

Тюльпан (Tulpan): it draws on 1 recorded source.

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Events, places, movements and ideas outside fiction that this work is recorded as drawing on.

Nature & Animals

Real world

Real-world influenceHIGH
  • The Kazakh Steppe
  • Herding
  • Lambing

Sergey Dvortsevoy came from documentary and shot it on the Hunger Steppe with a real herding family's animals, which is why the film's best-known sequence is an actual live birth of a lamb, delivered on camera in one take by the actor. From the life: the yurt, the flock, the wind, the dependence of a young man's marriage prospects on having a herd of his own, and the slow emptying of the steppe as the young leave for the city. The environment is not a backdrop to the story; it is the obstacle the story is made of. Asa cannot get a wife, and cannot get a herd, and cannot leave, for reasons that are all about sheep.

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About the work

Тюльпан (Tulpan)

On the steppes of Kazakhstan, Asa lives in a yurt with his sister Samal, her husband Ondas, and their three children. Ondas is a herdsman, tough and strong. It's dry, dusty, and windy; too many lambs are stillborn. Against this backdrop, Asa, a dreamer who's slight of build and recently finished with a stint in the Russian Navy, tries to establish a life on the steppes. He, his friend Boni, and Ondas call on Tulpan, the only single girl in the area. The men talk to her parents while she listens out of sight. Her answer and Asa's later trips to talk to her form an arc of hope against the harsh land. Is this the place of Asa's dreams? What about the other lambs? Tulpan was Kazakhstan's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign Language Film category, but it didn't make the final shortlist. It won the award for Best Film at the 2nd Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

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