Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: Zhanana Kurmasheva. Fotografia / Photography: Kuanysh Kurmanbayev. Montaggio / Editing: Aidan Serik. Musica / Music: Akmaral Mergen. Suono / Sound: Ilya Gariyev. Produzione / Produced by: Plan B. Con il sostegno di / Supported by: Kazakh Cinema. Distribuzione internazionale / World Sales: Verità Films.
Set in the desolate Kazakh steppe, once a Soviet nuclear testing site, the film offers a stark and poetic warning for humanity’s future. Between 1949 and 1991, over 456 nuclear tests left a legacy of radioactive contamination and suffering. It intertwines the journeys of ecologists mapping radioactive areas and a nearby family grappling with the lingering echoes of a past spanning three generations.
“The steppe is alive in its own way. One morning, I woke early to film the dawn. It was overcast, the air heavy with a sense of emptiness and stillness. I saw cows lying in the gray light, staring at me with an intensity that was both meditative and unsettling. They chewed slowly, as if marking time. Then, suddenly, sparrows began chirping and hopping around. Their liveliness was startling – an assertion of vitality in a landscape that seemed almost lifeless. I realized… they were singing to convince themselves they were alive.” (Z. Kurmasheva)
Zhanana Kurmasheva
Zhanana Kurmasheva is a Kazakh director specialising in documentary filmmaking. She holds a BA and MA in Film Directing from the Kazakh National Academy of Arts. Kurmasheva has participated in a number of international workshops and training programs. We Live Here is her debut feature-length documentary: the film premiered at 2025 CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and was then screened at many international film festivals.
filmografia scelta / selected filmography 2013 Zhenya cm / sf doc. 2025 Atameken (We Live Here) doc.
