About

Young Uzbek filmmaker Shokir Kholikov explores aging and the disruption of technology in his film Sunday. An elderly couple in contemporary rural Uzbekistan are content with their quiet life that gently moves with the seasons: tending to their watermelons, weaving carpets and milking their goats. Their adult sons are enamoured with the new and seek to update their parent’s lives with modern appliances, a fridge, a stove and more. While the new technology promises reliability and convenience, the couple are baffled by the need for change and the constant frustration of being bustled and bossed by their sons. The film’s narrative unfolds with a subtle, dry humour in the stage-like setting of the beloved family home which is comprised of a wooden platform in the outdoors, a shade tree, a kitchen that has a dirt floor with a wood fire and a simple house structure. Sunday earned the recently graduated writer-editor-director Shokir Kholikov the Shanghai International Film Festival’s Asian New Talent Award in 2023.