Fate / Buiruk

Credits

cast

Dastan Madalbekov

Director

Biography

He joined a theatre club as a child and performed in children’s plays. During his school years, he appeared in several films. He later passed a National Television casting and worked as a dubbing actor for children’s cartoons. After leaving school, he enrolled at the Kyrgyz Institute of Arts and Culture to study TV and radio directing, but moved to Moscow before graduating. He enrolled at VGIK film school on the film directing programme under V. V. Menshov. His student films explored themes of migration and childhood loneliness in the regions where he grew up. In 2022, his short film Son of His Father received the UNICEF Prize at the 64th Zinebi International Film Festival and was shown at numerous other international film festivals.

Filmography

2022 – “Son of His Father” / 16 min 34 sec / Fiction 2025 – “Invite Your Mother to Dance” / 85 min / Fiction, Drama, Musical 2026 – “Fate” / 85 min / Fiction, Drama

Directors Statement

My father’s absence shaped my childhood: I was told he lived in America, a place that became for me the “White Steamboat” of Aitmatov. Later I learned he had died. All my early films explored this wound, and Buiruk is the culmination of that reflection. Produced by Kyrgyzfilm, it consciously pays homage to the masters of Kyrgyz cinema, including Bolot Shamshiev. The film addresses a reality still urgent in our region: thousands of children of migrants grow up without parents nearby. It is a story of longing and acceptance, but also of the parent’s perspective — in a sense, the “return of the prodigal father.” In Kyrgyz, Buiruk means both “command” and “God’s will,” and the film moves between these two meanings.