Short Film Grand Prix Competition
US Premiere

BRIDE KIDNAPPING IN KYRGYZSTAN




Petr Lom

Country of production: Canada/ Kyrgyzstan
Year: 2004
Language: Kyrgyz
Mins: 51

Producer: Petr Lom
Cinematography: Petr Lom
Editing: Anatoly Sivoha, Petr Lom
Sound: Petr Lom
Music: Rosa Amanova

Source: Films Transit International
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Here’s a fascinating portrait of a shocking social custom that raises provocative questions about the nature of love and marriage. Perhaps one in three marriages in rural Kyrgyzstan (a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia) happen through the (now illegal) ancient practice of bride abduction. A Kyrgyz man may take several friends, rent a car, stake out the prospective bride’s movements and snatch her off the street. She is restrained at the man’s family home while a delegation visits her family to inform them of the abduction. The woman is held until one of her relatives determines whether they will accept the abductor’s “proposal” and can persuade her to marry him. The level of consent and the familiarity of the bride and groom vary. Sometimes the bride is engaged to the groom and agrees to the kidnapping as a playful ritual. In many other cases, however, the woman does not want to marry her suitor or has never even met him before she is kidnapped. The film follows the dramatic story of four non-consensual kidnappings.

Petr Lom was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1968. He grew up in Canada and received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard in 1997 and taught at several European universities. He gave up his career in the University in 2004 to pursue a full-time career as a documentary filmmaker. Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan is his first film. He's just received the Soros fellowship for his next film.

Filmography

Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan (2004)

SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2005 AT 5.15 PM. / GALLERY THEATRE
SCREENING WITH DREAMLAND
TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2005 AT 2.00 PM. / CHOPIN THEATRE
SCREENING WITH DREAMLAND