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THE WOUNDED ANGEL

By Emir BAIGAZIN

AUGENSCHEIN FILMPRODUKTION - as PROD

Drama - Completed 2015

Summer in 1990’s Kazakhstan, shortly after the collapse of the soviet union. The lifes of four teenagers are about to take an irreversible turn...

- Year of production
- 2015
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- KAZAKHSTAN, FRANCE, GERMANY
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Director(s)
- Emir BAIGAZIN
- Writer(s)
- Emir BAIGAZIN
- Synopsis
- THE WOUNDED ANGEL consists of four short episodes, each telling the story of a teenager in a godforsaken village in 1990’s Kazakhstan.
  
  Balapan is a 13-year-old boy with an unusual voice. Though he is the victim of his bullying class mates, he never fights back. At the community center he runs into Serik, a boy of his age, who is attending boxing competitions at night. A very special friendship between the two boys begins to grow. The day before Serik’s upcoming fight, a group of criminals tries to force Serik to lose on purpose. When Serik refuses, the crowd beats him up badly. Balapan, however, remembers Serik’s last wish to fight this bout...
  
  Zharas is tall, strong, and handsome in his own way. He is modest, yet not a chatterbox and supports his mother after school. Still – people don’t say good things about Zharas, since his father is a thief. As he returns from prison, Zharas does his best to cope with the new situation. Meanwhile his father is desperately looking for a job, but nobody wants to hire a former gangster. That is when Zharas realizes he himself has to get things rolling...
  
  Zhaba's family consists of himself and his mother. His greatest and depressing psychological complex is their financial situation. Zhaba is an outcast, who is attracted by the underground with its treasures. He loves the irons and base metals he usually sells very well at the buying spots. One day he finds a secret access to an abandoned steel factory providing precious base metals. Some kids who ran away from a deranged kids’ shelter hide on the factory property. As the kids are getting high on glue sniffing (which they call “meeting the wounded angel”), Zhaba makes a fatal plan...
  
  At first sight, Aslan seems to be a very balanced boy. He keeps winning regional natural sciences contests and dreams of entering a renowned medical school. But the life of the 13-year-old takes a sharp turn when he finds out that Rosa, his girlfriend, is pregnant with his baby. Aslan can’t get past the idea of being a teenager father in the rural province, where every inconsiderate act casts a long, sinful shadow. He forces Rosa to do an unconventional abortion made by an amateur medic, which ends up unfortunately for Rosa. This incident plants the seeds of guilt and self-pity inside the teenager’s soul. He starts strangling and punching himself – until eventually he begins to hallucinate...