Dilorom Kambarova

Khamraev's sleek, stylish 1979 film, a modernist political melodrama that earned prizes abroad but official disapproval at home, interconnects the stories of three women struggling with traditional social constraints in post-World War II Uzbekistan. (cinematheque)

Man Follows Birds moves from one sumptuous moment to the next -- rides through ecstatically coloured landscapes, a trio of friends waking up covered in apple blossoms, the hero imagining his beautiful and long-dead mother in images that have an abstract power and beauty. (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

The Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s were immensely popular in the Soviet Union, and Khamraev made his own wide-screen version using the vistas of Uzbekistan: mountains, streams, eroding walled-in towns. His hero, with the weasel eyes of Lee Van Cleef and the manic laugh of Toshiro Mifune, is a Red commandant in 1920s Uzbekistan, going after the Muslim troops who've deserted him. (cinematheque)