NIGHT GOD  (NOCHNOI BOG)

Written and directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov

Director’s statement

The main character is a tired, shuddering in eternal winter man in a hat. He wanders from place to place looking to get paid.

They strap a bomb on him, telling him it’s just a fake bomb. They promise to pay for his participation in TV-show.  But there is a horrible mistake, and the bomb turns out to be real.

The man with bomb is looking for those who can help to take this bomb off. But authorities require certificates and signatures from different bodies proving that he is not a terrorist and never follow extremist religious groups.

In front of him the world goes crazy. He sees signs in the sky, the demons walk the streets, and nobody cares about his ticking bomb.

The fate, the irrational force is hiding behind every fatal event, every social injustice, and it’s hard to understand or to fix.

The hero relies on rational logic, but there’s no point anymore and no one who could help – the end of the world is already happening, quietly but for a very long time.

The hero is aware that he always was afraid of something. He believes that some divinity – maybe it’s Night God – is watching over them, over their society for long time, and all his previous generations got through the same.

It’s impossible to remake society; the roots of what is happening have an almost mystical origin.

The hero can do only one thing: stop trying to make sense of it all and just look into the sky without shielding his eyes even as others hide from it.

I like to define the meaning of what is happening in society in mythological terms, mixing reality and dream. Such a mix is more enlightening and has more impact than the broadcasting of bombastic truths.

The hero as Divine Comedy’s Dante travels around infernal corners of a strange world, which is absolutely real and even domestic. He sees real, mundane details: police officers at work; fugitive migrants. But there is blood behind every wall; there are shooting stars outside the windows, there is a clamour in the sky and an evil din under the earth.

Travelling around without purpose (formally he is looking for certificates), the hero goes back to his childhood to seek the reasons for his existence, the power which would give him courage to confront the absurdity of life.

NIGHT GOD (NOCHNOI BOG)  110 min

“The end of the world is already happening”, says director Adilkhan Yerzhanov, “quietly, but for a very long time.”

The sense of god, light, evil and good is distorted in a frenzy, in which our modern world is losing itself; and in the centre of all this chaos there is a small man in a hat who wanders from place to place with his daughter looking for odd jobs. They strap a bomb on him, telling him it’s just a fake bomb. They promise to pay for his participation in a TV-show.  But there is a horrible mistake, and the bomb turns out to be real. As he looks for those who can help to take this bomb off, authorities require certificates and signatures from different bodies testifying that he’s not a terrorist belonging to some extremist religious group.

As the world goes insane before him, he sees omens in the sky; demons walk the streets, and nobody cares about his ticking bomb. The irrational force of destiny is hiding behind every fatal event, every social injustice, and it’s hard to understand or to fix.  Kafka on acid in Kazakhstan.

“This is a spellbinder by a master of sound and image and a poet of dispossession,” says Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Director / Screenplay / Editor : Adilkhan Yerzhanov

DOP: Yedige Nesipbekov

Production Designer : Yermek Utegenov

Producer : Serik Abishev, Olga Khlasheva

Cast : Baimurat Zhumanov, Aliya Zainalova, Nurbek Mukushev, Konstantin Kozlov