I'm a published writer, illustrator, and film critic. Cinema has been a passion of mine since my first viewing of Milius' Conan the Barbarian and my film tastes go from experimental to modern blockbuster.
Fifteen year old Eva van End (Vivian Dierickx) is the quirky overlooked daughter in a seemingly perfect, but dysfunctional family. One day, much to the surprise of everyone except Eva, a German exchange student named Veit (Rafael Gareisen) comes to stay with them for a week. Through their individual interactions with the visitor, the van End family is forced to confront inner truths and deal with the frayed networks in their home.
Kazakhstan was the last of the republics to become independent in 1991 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Despite some advances in foreign policy it still remains under authoritarian rule. It’s leading filmmaker, Darezhan Omirbayev, presents Student as a piercing depiction of Kazakhstan in this film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s literary masterpiece, ‘Crime and Punishment’.