In a war-torn area where a human life doesn't matter much anymore, Tamara searches for her kidnapped son. In doing so, she hires a former police officer whose methods are anything but squeamish. Her search brings her ever deeper into a dreary world of moral abysses, where every means is right to ensure their own survival.
DALA QASQIRI (STEPPENWOLF) from Kazakhstan is somewhere between post-war drama, road movie and neo-western. With a cynical undertone, director Adilkhan Yerzhanov comments on the brutalization of his protagonists to a point where even evil still appears good in a world that has lost all hope — where life only appears as an annoying transition phase to redemptive death. Not a light diet.
Beware! [Child Abuse]