A tender, unforgettable comedy about a vanishing way of life.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Might be described as an epic landscape film, a sweetly comic coming-of-age story or a lyrical work of social realism. But the setting -- a windswept, sparely populated steppe in southern Kazakhstan -- gives the movie a mood that sometimes feels closer to that of science fiction.
What makes Tulpan remarkable are the extended unbroken scenes, both dramatic and comic.
In every respect, this unclassifiable movie is an amazing accomplishment.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
Funny, fascinating, utterly unclassifiable film.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
If you see only one comic love story from Kazakhstan this year, choose this prize-winning honey.
A beautifully choreographed and photographed story about tradition and modernity in rural Asia.
The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett
Polished, funny and utterly charming.
In the tradition of ethnographic dramas from "Nanook of the North" to "The Fast Runner," Tulpan drops us in the middle of a godforsaken nowhere and marvels at the people who live there.
The acting and story are solid, but the real star of Tulpan is the gorgeous, never-ending landscape -- flat and arid, and home to camels, goats and lambs, and hearty people who live in tentlike yurts.