Cinema Club Film Screening: The Orator

Directed by Yusuf Razykov (Uzbekistan, 1999)

A historical drama. The meetings and marches of the Red Revolution change the life of the poor Iskander. Because he knows Russian, he becomes an interpreter for the new government at first, and then an active orator popularizing the new regime. His fame and popularity grow and he enjoys being in the spotlight. Later, he understands that the new system entered his home and changed his personal life as well. He has three wives, harmoniously co-existing in his home, and now he finds a fourth — Mariam Fazilovna, head of the Revolutionary Committee. The epic story ends with the birth of Mariam and Iskander’s son, the death of Mariam in a jail and Iskander’s renunciation of his wives and son. The story takes place during the 1930s, the period of khudzhum – the Bolshevik’s forced liberation of Central Asian women and the symbolical burnings of their traditional veils. – Kino Kultura