The Wounded Angel

The Wounded Angel is the second instalment in Emir Baigazins' Aslan trilogy, which takes us back to the countryside in Kazakhstan in the 1990s. The transformation from Soviet-style planning to market economy, and the widespread poverty that followed, form the backdrop of four different coming-of-age stories of four different teenage boys that focus on themes such as guilt, sin, and punishment. Each part starts with images from the Finnish painter Hugo Simberg's frescoes from the Tampere cathedral that has given the film its title. As usual with Baigazin's films, the story is told through beautiful and rigorously composed images rather than through dialogue.

Emir Baigazin (b.1984) is a director, producer, and actor from Kazakhstan. He studied at the National Academy of Art in Almaty, and was discovered by several international film festivals even before his first feature Harmony Lessons in 2013. Baigazin is one of the main guests at this year's Films from the South festival.