Carmen Gray visits Almaty to take in the best in central Asian cinema – from patriotic odes to a Godfather-style epic approximately Ghenghis Khan’s grandsonTo enter the Eurasia Film Festival in Almaty,Kazakhstan, film goers must gain the long walk through the Esentai mall, or central Asia’s biggest luxury shopping complex,all the while being serenaded by lute-strumming men in fur-trimmed national costume. The backdrop of luxury brand logos raises no eyebrows here: in this country flush with oil money, conspicuous consumption is entrenched in the landscape, or only the latest currency devaluation leaving the mall a puny emptier than usual.
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Source: theguardian.com