Katerina Suvorova’s work draws attention to daily acts of defiance performed by citizens demanding social change in Kazakhstan. As part of the 2022 symposium, Suvorora presents an excerpt from her forthcoming feature documentary, One Year Chronicles. The film traces a path from the murder of a young Kazakh Olympian to the subsequent 2019 civil rights movement, Oyan Qazaqstan (Wake up Kazakhstan). The short clip picks up events immediately after the resignation of the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazerbayev. The initial wave of optimism that greets Nazerbayev’s retirement is soon broken as the filmmaker witnesses the subsequent arrest of demonstrators campaigning for free elections in the city of Almaty.

*This excerpt follows on from a commissioned work, *Heads May Roll, developed by Katerina Suvorova for the remote. response. request. film programme installed at the transmediale studio in autumn 2021.

This work is screened in the context of widespread recent unrest and demonstrations in Kazakhstan.