Gallery
All Pictures (6)Biography
Aktan Arym Kubat was born in Kuntuu, Khirgizia in 1957. After completing his studies at the state art academy in 1980, he worked as head of production design for Kirghizfilm. In 1990, he made his debut as director with the documentary short "Un chien courait", which was followed by another documentary ("Sel"kincek",1993), and his first feature film Beshkempir – Der fremde Sohn". The later was also the first official production from Khirgizia to be screened at several international festivals, and it went on to win the "Silver Leopard" in the category "Young Cinema" at the Locarno IFF.
Alongside with his feature films, Kubat also shot advertisements, some of which have a socio-critical underlining, and his clip "Yris-Aldy-Yntimak" was awarded the grand prize at the Moscow ad film festival. Kubat"s second outing as feature film director, "Maimal", premiered in the section "Un certain regard" at the 2001 Cannes IFF. In 2010, his third full-length film "Der Dieb des Lichts" won several prizes at international festivals.
A year later, his film "Ray dlya mamy" ("Mother's Paradise", CZ 2011), based on the screenplay by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, was awarded the Prize of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany at the goEast film festival in Wiesbaden. Kubat was also one of the screenwriters of the Kyrgyz nomad story "Sutak" ("Heavenly Nomadic", KG 2015). His next directorial work, the international co-production "Die Flügel der Menschen" ("Centaur", 2015-2017), premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival in 2017 and received the CICAE Art Cinema Award.