Film and Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Nation building is a process which is often contested, not just among different ethnicities within a nation-state, but also among the titular ethnic majority. This article explores the contested nature of the nation-building process in post-Soviet Kazakhstan through the examination of several cinematic works. Utilising a post-modern perspective which views nations and national identity as invented, imagined and ambivalent; it identifies four discursive strands within recent post-Soviet Kazakh cinema pertaining to nationhood and national identity (acknowledged as ethno-centric, civic, religious and socio economic). Rather than exposing the government’s attempts to transmit their own version of nationhood upon the viewing populace as a straightforwardly ‘top-down’ process; these strands illustrate the enormous variation in understanding of what constitutes ‘the nation’ and national identity across Kazakhstan’s film industry.