Amangeldy
About Amangeldy
In 1916 the tsarist draft calls Kazakh sharua to labor behind the World War I front. The call sets off a rising. Amangeldy Imanov leads it. After 1917 he accepts Soviet power and takes his detachments against the counter-revolution. The film follows that turn, from the labor draft through the civil-war fighting, and ends with Imanov on the Soviet side.
Cast & crew
More about Amangeldy
Moisey Levin directed. Vsevolod Ivanov, Beimbet Mailin, and Gabit Musrepov wrote the script. Khecho Nazaryants photographed. Mikhail Gnesin and Akhmet Zhubanov composed the music. Yelyubay Umurzakov plays Amangeldy Imanov and Shara Zhiyenkulova is the leading woman. Russian sources call it the first Kazakh sound feature and the first Kazakh fiction film, made at Lenfilm by the Alma-Ata newsreel studio's filmmakers. The stated length is 84 minutes. A circulating copy runs about 73 minutes.
Themes
Background
The 1916 Central Asian revolt answered a decree sending local men to rear labor for the imperial army. The film carries that revolt forward into the civil war and a Soviet ending.
In film history
Kazakh film histories treat Amangeldy as the first Kazakh fiction feature and the first Kazakh sound film.
Making
The Alma-Ata group shot the picture at Lenfilm, which had the sound stages the new Kazakh studio did not yet have.
Look
Khecho Nazaryants shot the steppe gatherings and the later fighting for a sound camera.
Music
Mikhail Gnesin and Akhmet Zhubanov shared the score. The film is a talkie, in Russian and Kazakh.
Preservation
Prints survive. One circulating copy runs about 73 minutes, shorter than the 84 minutes given for the original.
Notes
- The Kazakh title is Amankeldi. The Russian title is Amangeldy.
- Serke Kozhamkulov, Kurmanbek Zhandarbekov, Kapan Badyrov, and Kanabek Bayseitov are in the cast.
- The 1916 rising in the film is against labor conscription, not against a battle draft.
- Imanov, a historical figure of the 1916 revolt, is played as the man who later joins the Soviets.
- Dialogue is in Russian and Kazakh.
Scenes
- The labor-draft order reaches the steppe and the sharua rise.
- Imanov takes command of the revolt.
- He turns his detachments against the anti-Soviet side.
