The black horse
About shooting the feature film “Full Moon" in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan.
Thanks to director Naana Chankova and actor Victor Xaptaxanov, a few days ago I received a copy of the film "Full Moon”. It was a movie I’d starred in but had not seen. Filmed in 1989, the project coincided with the first ever protests organized againt Soviet nuclear tests.
I was a friend of screenwriter Leila Axinyanova, she also studied at the VGIK (Moscow Film Institute), and it was she who invited me to participate in the casting of this film which was partly inspired by the life of another mutual friend: Alberto Bolaños, a talented Colombian film director who was murdered by the Russian mafia in the early and violent years of Boris Yeltsin’s government and the transition from a socialist to a market economy.
The movie “Full Moon" was filmed by the great director of photography Tatiana Loginova, in the capital Alma Ata, near the border with China. The film has the greenish tint of Soviet era celuloid and the characters, although Central Asian, speak in Russian, the language imposed by the Soviet Union.
My character (Aia), was a student from Latin America, who lived in Moscow and travelled to Kazakhstan in search of a lost love. There she meets a witch (Mintan Kimpir) that bestows her with the magical power to be free of human passions ... My daughter Alondra was born only months before we shot, I was 20 years old.
I keep unforgettable memories of that production. We went to the outskirts of Alma Ata and stopped at a small village where there was only a shop with some traditional costumes and a salesman who did not speak Russian: he asked for my hand, and in return he offered everything he had in his store!
We came to a valley with canyons and ravines. The scenery was stunning: huge rocks of ghostly forms that were created by water, wind and erosion over millions of years ago. From the top of one particular mountain, I was amazed to see you could make out the Silk Road and the great Republic of China.
We lived in a cabin laid with colorful hand-woven carpets and mud walls covered with lime, and a yurt made of felt and fur where the other team members slept.
We had no water, no electricity. There was a power plant used exclusively for shooting. We bathed in the river that was home to a black snake that scared me, with which I’d learn to coexist. And there was a beautiful dog named Shara.
The actress who co-starred in the role of Mistan Kempir (most powerful witch), was Olga Enzak. She was a beautiful woman over 70, who told us she had become famous later on in life. She was cheerful, with a face furrowed by wrinkles like roads, always with good humor and wisdom. I remember she was glad when a new visitor came and she welcomed the "old white-beard". It took me a while to understand she was referring to the bottle of vodka!
At night the sky was so clear with lots of stars, the whole Milky Way, so close, it felt like I could touch and hold it in my hand. Every night we slept on the grass to count shooting stars and make wishes.
I remember one day when I was not in scenes, that I climbed to the top of a hill and watched with astonishment as a black horse eluded a shepherd who chased him with a rope. Then, from behind a hill there appeared other wild horses, but this time they were domesticated by the riders. The black horse managed to escape, but I could not stop thinking about him, hopefully he’d never be caught.
Another day I went for a walk and found a shepherd with a flock of sheep and, near a hut where the women prepared bread in a large clay oven, I found hundreds of wild marijuana plants! A young man watching me nearby laughed at my amazement and another man, his father, brought out a lamb to sacrifice in front of me! With a big knife he cut the neck and left it to bleed to death on the earth.
Later that day we were invited to the house of a villager who prepared a feast. We sat in a circle on the carpet in front of the large tray with dozens of bottles of vodka. It was a gift to the participants in a production that was filled with joy.
I remember shooting the scene in which Mistan Kempir enchants me with her powers. Everytime I pretended to fall into a sleeping spell, I had fits of laughter. The team was impatient, but we could not stop laughing.
I had prepared for the role by reading witchcraft magazines for spells that I could memorize which would transform my character. Back then I felt fascinated by witches and magic. I learned to read the Tarot, but in reality, I invented my own method that I used to accurately predict the future for almost everyone on the team! The future is in the eyes, in the beholding, and once the future can be seen, it can be changed!
Watching this film today, I feel swept away by the wave of change in the Soviet Union. There was no Internet then, I lost contact with the friends I made during production. Those people and that woman on screen, are only vaguely familiar to me. It was like another life, far away. In one scene I read my future in the cards; after 20 years, I know which parts I predicted.
The territory of Kazakhstan was historically inhabited by nomadic tribes until Genghis Khan invaded in the thirteenth century. In the 1930s, many Kazakh writers, thinkers, poets, politicians and historians were killed follwing orders by Joseph Stalin, in order to suppress Kazakh identity and culture. In 1936 the Kazakh Socialist Republic became part of the Soviet Union until it declared independence in 1991.
Kazakhstan is a place to where I want to return. I have a saved one story called "The Silver Fox", with hopes to film it one day and see the black horse, galloping free.
Ishtar Yasin
Mexico, June, 2015.
Translation: Jaleh Ruhe
Thanks to director Naana Chankova and actor Victor Xaptaxanov, a few days ago I received a copy of the film "Full Moon”. It was a movie I’d starred in but had not seen. Filmed in 1989, the project coincided with the first ever protests organized againt Soviet nuclear tests.
I was a friend of screenwriter Leila Axinyanova, she also studied at the VGIK (Moscow Film Institute), and it was she who invited me to participate in the casting of this film which was partly inspired by the life of another mutual friend: Alberto Bolaños, a talented Colombian film director who was murdered by the Russian mafia in the early and violent years of Boris Yeltsin’s government and the transition from a socialist to a market economy.
The movie “Full Moon" was filmed by the great director of photography Tatiana Loginova, in the capital Alma Ata, near the border with China. The film has the greenish tint of Soviet era celuloid and the characters, although Central Asian, speak in Russian, the language imposed by the Soviet Union.
My character (Aia), was a student from Latin America, who lived in Moscow and travelled to Kazakhstan in search of a lost love. There she meets a witch (Mintan Kimpir) that bestows her with the magical power to be free of human passions ... My daughter Alondra was born only months before we shot, I was 20 years old.
I keep unforgettable memories of that production. We went to the outskirts of Alma Ata and stopped at a small village where there was only a shop with some traditional costumes and a salesman who did not speak Russian: he asked for my hand, and in return he offered everything he had in his store!
We came to a valley with canyons and ravines. The scenery was stunning: huge rocks of ghostly forms that were created by water, wind and erosion over millions of years ago. From the top of one particular mountain, I was amazed to see you could make out the Silk Road and the great Republic of China.
We lived in a cabin laid with colorful hand-woven carpets and mud walls covered with lime, and a yurt made of felt and fur where the other team members slept.
We had no water, no electricity. There was a power plant used exclusively for shooting. We bathed in the river that was home to a black snake that scared me, with which I’d learn to coexist. And there was a beautiful dog named Shara.
The actress who co-starred in the role of Mistan Kempir (most powerful witch), was Olga Enzak. She was a beautiful woman over 70, who told us she had become famous later on in life. She was cheerful, with a face furrowed by wrinkles like roads, always with good humor and wisdom. I remember she was glad when a new visitor came and she welcomed the "old white-beard". It took me a while to understand she was referring to the bottle of vodka!
At night the sky was so clear with lots of stars, the whole Milky Way, so close, it felt like I could touch and hold it in my hand. Every night we slept on the grass to count shooting stars and make wishes.
I remember one day when I was not in scenes, that I climbed to the top of a hill and watched with astonishment as a black horse eluded a shepherd who chased him with a rope. Then, from behind a hill there appeared other wild horses, but this time they were domesticated by the riders. The black horse managed to escape, but I could not stop thinking about him, hopefully he’d never be caught.
Another day I went for a walk and found a shepherd with a flock of sheep and, near a hut where the women prepared bread in a large clay oven, I found hundreds of wild marijuana plants! A young man watching me nearby laughed at my amazement and another man, his father, brought out a lamb to sacrifice in front of me! With a big knife he cut the neck and left it to bleed to death on the earth.
Later that day we were invited to the house of a villager who prepared a feast. We sat in a circle on the carpet in front of the large tray with dozens of bottles of vodka. It was a gift to the participants in a production that was filled with joy.
I remember shooting the scene in which Mistan Kempir enchants me with her powers. Everytime I pretended to fall into a sleeping spell, I had fits of laughter. The team was impatient, but we could not stop laughing.
I had prepared for the role by reading witchcraft magazines for spells that I could memorize which would transform my character. Back then I felt fascinated by witches and magic. I learned to read the Tarot, but in reality, I invented my own method that I used to accurately predict the future for almost everyone on the team! The future is in the eyes, in the beholding, and once the future can be seen, it can be changed!
Watching this film today, I feel swept away by the wave of change in the Soviet Union. There was no Internet then, I lost contact with the friends I made during production. Those people and that woman on screen, are only vaguely familiar to me. It was like another life, far away. In one scene I read my future in the cards; after 20 years, I know which parts I predicted.
The territory of Kazakhstan was historically inhabited by nomadic tribes until Genghis Khan invaded in the thirteenth century. In the 1930s, many Kazakh writers, thinkers, poets, politicians and historians were killed follwing orders by Joseph Stalin, in order to suppress Kazakh identity and culture. In 1936 the Kazakh Socialist Republic became part of the Soviet Union until it declared independence in 1991.
Kazakhstan is a place to where I want to return. I have a saved one story called "The Silver Fox", with hopes to film it one day and see the black horse, galloping free.
Ishtar Yasin
Mexico, June, 2015.
Translation: Jaleh Ruhe
