Filmed in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Heads May Roll is a conversation between filmmaker Katerina Suvorova and fellow activist and writer Moldiyar Yergebekov. Together the pair discuss subjects explored in Suvorova’s forthcoming feature films One Year Chronicles and Qyz Bolsyn (May It Be A Girl) and draw attention to the daily acts of defiance performed by citizens demanding social change in Kazakhstan. In her film One Year Chronicles, Suvorova traces a path from the murder of a young Kazakh Olympian to the subsequent 2019 civil rights movement, Oyan Qazaqstan (Wake up Kazakhstan). In Qyz Bolsyn (May It Be A Girl), she follows a diverse group of women from across Central Asia whose given names bluntly express their parent’s unfulfilled wishes for a boy while expressing their hopes for future male offspring. The film features women with traditional names, including Uldana (the soul of a boy), Ulkayda (where is the boy?) and Kyzdygoy (no more girls). Exploring the socio-political impact of these films in Kazakhstan, the pair highlight the ongoing political oppression, systemic gender discrimination and colonialism's continuing consequences in the ex-Soviet state.
Heads May Roll was commissioned by transmediale 2021–22 and is supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Kazakhstan. Russian translation by Duman Nursila.
Katerina Suvorova was born in the 1980’s in the USSR and was raised in Almaty, Kazakhstan where she received her art education. She studied live action cinema at the High Courses of Script Writers and Directors in Moscow and at the Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School in LA. Her documentaries have been awarded international prizes including the Critics Guild Award at Kinoshok Film Festival, National Russian Premium “St. Anna” and the Special Prize from Robert Bosch Stiftung. Special Mention of the Jury - Jihlava International Documentary Festival, Czech Republic, 2016. Kazakhstan’s Film Critics’ Award for the Contribution to the Development of Kazakh Cinema, 2016. #36 Festival international Jean Rouch - Comité du film ethnographique 2017, Anthropology and Sustainable Development Prize (France).
Suvorova’s films draw on the everyday lived experience of diverse communities across Kazakhstan and wider Central Asia. Reoccurring themes in her work include the ongoing political oppression, systemic gender discrimination and colonialism's continuing consequences in the region.
She is the founder and director of independent documentary studio Tihiy Svet, based in Kazakhstan.
