MEST
Scen.: Anatoli Kim; F.: Sergei Kosmanev; Mo.: Polina Stein; Scgf.: Elena Eliseeva; Co.: Yelena Svavilna; Mu.: Vladislav Shute; Su.: Gulsara Mukatayeva; Eff. spec.: Albert Rudachenko, Viktor Zhanov; Int.: Alexandre Pan (Sungu, the poet), Oleg Li (King-Monk), Valentin Te (novice), Lubove Germanova (Elza), Rasim Jakibaev (Tsai); Prod.: Habibur Rahman Khan per Kazakhfilm Studios
Film Notes
In a rage, a teacher murders a boy. Another boy is bred, for one sole purpose: to avenge his brother’s death. Kazakh master Ermek Shinarbaev’s close collaboration with the Korean-Russian writer Anatoli Kim yielded three great films, the most remarkable of which is this beautiful, profoundly unsettling film. A true odyssey, geographically and psychologically. One of the greatest films to emerge from the Kazakh New Wave, and one of the toughest.
Kent Jones
In the beginning of the 40s, hundreds of thousands of Koreans that had lived in the Russian Far East since the XIX century were forcibly displaced overnight according to Stalin’s orders. They were regarded as traitors and public enemies. Women, children, old people, were sent away with no explanation. The Korean diaspora, with a population of over a million, has been a forbidden topic for many years. Revenge is the first film telling the story of their tragedy.
Ermek Shinarbaev
Restored in 2010 by World Cinema Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory,
using tthe original camera negative, the sound negative and a positive print provided by the Kazakhfilm Studio and held at the State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Special thanks to director Ermek Shinarbaev for actively participating in the restoration process. The digital restoration produced a new 35mm internegative.