The new short film festival Central Asia: At the Crossroads celebrates its first edition on September 27 and 28, 2025, at the SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA. Short films from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and the Uyghur region of China will be screened.

The festival is divided into four curated short film blocks (Radical Hopefulness, Tender is the Youth, Kinds of Remembrance, Yurt – bu? Homeland – is?) and presents films dealing with everyday life, collective memory and identity, feminist and queer perspectives, as well as the lived realities of marginalized communities. In parallel, a showcase program will take place in Tashkent in collaboration with the independent Tashkent Film School.

The festival is an initiative and project by Master's students of the Osteuropa-Institut, Amina Alish and Danyil Potopaiev. In addition to the screenings, there will be a discussion with Temur Umarov (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Dr. Aksana Ismailbekova (ZMO) about the current socio-political situation in Central Asia, a Q&A with curators (Gulnoza Irgasheva and Valeriya Kim), and a workshop on decolonial and feminist perspectives on cinema with Kazakh director Malika Mukhamejan.

All films are shown with English subtitles.

The complete program description and tickets can be found here: https://sinematranstopia.com/en/program/film-series/central-asia-at-the-crossroads

For further updates, follow us on Instagram: Central Asia: At the Crossroads (@ca_shortfilmfest)

The festival is taking place with the institutional and financial support of the Osteuropa-Institut.

Further partners of the festival are:

• Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien (ZOiS)

• HD Mag – Magazine on Art and Culture in Central Asia

• SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA

• Tashkent Film School