Luna Papa (1999)

The unborn child of Mamlakat (Khamatova) is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother (... See full summary »

Director:

Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov

Writers:

Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov, Irakli Kvirikadze

Stars:

Chulpan Khamatova, Moritz Bleibtreu, Ato Mukhamedzhanov

12 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Chulpan Khamatova	...	Mamlakat
Moritz Bleibtreu	...	Nasreddin
Ato Mukhamedzhanov	...	Safar
Merab Ninidze	...	Alik
Polina Raykina	...	Khabibula (voice)
Nikolay Fomenko	...	Yassir
Lola Mirzorakhimova	...	Zube
Sherali Abdulkajsov	...	Akbar
Dinmukhamet Akhimov	...	Gynecologist
Azalbek Nazriyev	...	Alisher Khamrayev
Aleftina Galiyeva	...	Dancer
Barvina Gulyamova	...	Dancer
Leila Nikajlova	...	Dancer
Sofya Amrulina	...	Dancer
Mukhayo Karimova	...	Dancer

Storyline

The unborn child of Mamlakat (Khamatova) is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother (Bleibtreu) in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a traveling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and makes her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.

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Plot Keywords:

reference to sophocles | road movie | surrealism | pregnancy | theater troupe | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Did You Know?

Trivia

An entire brick village was built for the making of the film, including street, canals and the harbor, and had to be rebuilt after a flooding.

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Goofs

After the pilot gives Mamlakat the fish, he jumps into an open window while wearing a scarf and an unzipped jacket. The following moment, when he is shown from inside the room, the scarf is gone and the jacket is mostly zipped up.

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Connections

Referenced in Un sogno fatto in Sicilia (2000)

User Reviews

Innovative, funny, and surrealistic

I'm not sure I liked the ending, which was a bit on the surrealistic side even for this movie, but otherwise I was engaged by the humour of this movie. There aren't too many movies that surprise me repeatedly. I was afraid to leave my seat, as I figured the movie could go in any direction.

This isn't Hollywood. Instead, this was movie with peculiar, amusing and imaginative twists and turns, not to mention the odd sight gag.

I saw "A time for drunken horses" about a week before this. "Horses" was about Kurds and set in Iran on the border with Iraq, while "Luna" was set in breakaway republics of the old Soviet Union. There are lots of similarities between the movies: deep poverty, dealing with ignorant, unkind small town people, running a gauntlet of soldiers to do commerce, and so on, yet "Luna" is a great comedy and "Horses" very much a bleak drama. What you take away from both movies is that life is still very difficult and provincial in some parts of the world. Geographically, too, the films are set in locations that are not very far apart (at least from the perspective of a North American!). Woman are treated in a crappy "old world" way in both places, too.

Moritz Bleibtreau as Nesreddin, the brother, is brilliant. Perhaps he is the reincarnation of Harpo Marx.

If you're sick of Hollywood formula films and you want to have a good time, I'd recommend this one.

Details

Official Sites:

Atlanta Films Official Russian Site

Country:

Tajikistan Germany Japan Uzbekistan Austria Switzerland France Russia

Language:

Russian Tajik Uzbek

Release Date:

31 March 2000 (Russia)

Also Known As:

Moon Father

Filming Locations:

Tajikistan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Euro Space, Fernsehen DRS, Frenetic Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1