Izdeu is a Kazakh word for ‘search.’ The film is an exploration of convoluted trajectories of seven generations of the protagonists’ foremothers, starting from the oldest, “seventh grandmother,” a nomadic woman from the banks of Syr Darya river. Flipping through several key pages of the colonial and post-colonial history of the region, it touches on the themes of oppression, trauma and resilience of indigenous peoples of Syr Darya in the face of historical cataclysms. As the camera follows the preparations for a traditional family reunion dinner, the narrative focuses on the complex interplay between personal and collective history.
