By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-04-01

TASHKENT -- Cinema has become one of the few ways for Crimean Tatars to preserve their history for future generations.

Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 brought serious consequences for Crimean Tatars, who subsequently faced a host of problems -- mainly efforts to suppress their culture, expulsion and repression.

Under these conditions, Tatar filmmaking is now an important tool for preserving the group's cultural identity, observers say.

Crimean Tatar filmmakers express their longing for freedom through their films, conveying the tragedy they faced after the annexation.

For them, cinema is not only a form of self-expression but an important tool in the struggle for freedom, the preservation of cultural traditions and the memory of their history.

Preserving history

However, there are still few films released in the Crimean Tatar language and the directors who create them are in short supply, said Kateryna Slipchenko, a Ukrainian journalist, film critic and member of the Ukrainian Oscar Committee.

"There are two interesting directors: Akhtem Seitablayev, who directed 'Haytarma' [in 2013] and 'Another's Prayer' [in 2017], and 26-year-old director Nariman Aliyev. He had excellent short films, and his feature film 'Homeward' was included in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival [in 2019]," Slipchenko told Kontur.

Aliyev's "Homeward" not only was screened at Cannes but won Best Film at the Bucharest International Film Festival and the Grand Prix of the Odesa Film Festival, both in 2019.

It was Ukraine's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Oscars.

Starring Seitablayev himself and Remzi Bilyalov, the road-movie film tells a story of a father and son that unfolds at the intersection of many painful storylines about people who have lost their homeland, Muslims in an Orthodox country and a dying culture.

In the film, Crimean Tatar brothers Alim and Nazim go to Kyiv after the annexation of Crimea.

Mustafa, their father, goes to the Ukrainian capital after Nazim's death to bring home his youngest son, Alim, and bury his eldest in his homeland according to Muslim customs.

"I couldn't even imagine that my film would be screened at Cannes, and I'm happy that my native Crimean Tatar language will be heard here in the Théâtre Debussy," said Aliyev, speaking onstage at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

He added that he is deeply pained by what is happening to his people on the peninsula, to the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians subjected to Russian repression for fighting to preserve their nations.

"'Homeward' is precisely about identity, the clash of traditions and multiculturalism, and the importance of Crimea as the promised land," said Slipchenko.

The Ukrainian government allocated more than 16 million UAH (€358,111) for the production of "Homeward," covering 80% of the total budget of more than 20 million UAH (€447,639), according to a statement from the Ministry of Culture.

The film prevailed in a competitive selection process featuring "patriotic film projects, for the creation and distribution of which state financial support is provided," the statement said.

The Ukrainian law "On Cinematography" supports the development of cinematography in the languages of ethnic minorities, including Crimean Tatar, and establishes conditions for the creation, preservation and screening of films in these languages even in Ukraine's difficult present circumstances.

Importance of documentaries

Documentaries play a key role in preserving the Crimean Tatar identity, especially under occupation, said Eskender Bariyev, chairman of the management board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center and a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.

For instance, they provide an independent platform for presenting the history of the Tatar movement without relying on the aggressor's version of history.

"On mainland Ukraine, Crimean Tatar resource centers have produced many documentaries that raise important issues," Bariyev told Kontur. "For example, "Give Me Back My Dad," a film that tells the story of the children of political prisoners, received 17 nominations at various film festivals."

The film has been on YouTube since last December.

Another documentary, "Crimea. Dehydration," is about water use on the peninsula.

The 2021 film turned into a thorough investigation of irrational water consumption in the occupied territory, garnering several festival nominations and a large number of views.

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center shot "Witnesses of the 1944 Genocide," a 90-minute film available on YouTube since 2020. It included testimonies from survivors of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's 1944 expulsion of Tatars from the peninsula to Soviet Central Asia, as well as memories shared by their children.

This documentary became key evidence of the tragic history of the Crimean Tatars.

"'Crimean Askers' [on YouTube since 2024] is a documentary about the Crimean Tatars fighting in the Russo-Ukrainian war for Ukraine, fighting for justice and the liberation of Crimea," said Bariyev.

'I'm a Tatar, but I live in Ukraine!'

Anatoly Zinovenko, 64, is a Ukrainian theater and film actor who has starred in films by Seitablayev. Zinovenko's career includes television and dubbing, with more than 100 voice-acting roles to his credit.

During the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, he was in Denmark and wrote a play called "Special Operation," which is performed in Ukrainian and Danish.

"At that moment, I couldn't just sit and do nothing -- this was the expression of my experiences and reaction to what was happening," Zinovenko told Kontur.

Crimean Tatar cinema faces the same problems as Ukrainian cinema but in much more difficult circumstances, he said.

Zinovenko recounted being invited to visit one of the Crimean Tatar settlements.

The residents had a Ukrainian flag hanging on their home. Doing so was an act of courage on their part. But as the owner of the house said, "I'm a Tatar, but I live in Ukraine!"

"These words touched me very much," said Zinovenko.

"I was glad to hear that despite his ethnicity the man is proud to be a citizen of Ukraine," he said. "Of course, everything is very difficult now, but such words provide hope and consolation."