Heat
(Znoy)
Shepitko's first film (her diploma work for VGIK), Heat burns with the presence of the Central Asian sun that scorches the earth and dictates more than anything else human relationships. It was shot under grueling conditions, on the barren Kirghizian steppes without a single tree for shade; film stock literally melted, and the 22-year-old director herself succumbed to the heat, only to return to direct the finale from a stretcher. Based on a well known novel by Kirghiz writer Chingiz Aytmatov, set during the mid-fifties effort to modernize farming methods in the Central Asian region of the USSR, the story follows the clash between two officials on a collective farm, one rooted in ancient traditions and the other afire with his belief in the new agricultural system.