Mankurt (1990 film)
Mankurt (; ) is a 1990 Soviet film written by Mariya Urmadova and directed by Hojaguly Narliyev. The main cast were the Turkish actors and and the Turkmen actors Maya-Gozel Aymedova and Hojadurdy Narliyev. Background. The film was partially filmed on location in Syria and in Turkey, representing a Turkish-Soviet cooperation in filmmaking. The film is based on one narrative strand within the novel "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years" ("И дольше века длится день") by Chinghiz Aitmatov, a philosophical tale about what can happen to people if they forget their motherland, language, and history . The Turkic legend mentioned in the novel tells about a cruel way of making a "mankurt" of a captive man in the hopes that he will forget everything but basic activities and, thus, becomes an ideal slave of "Zunghar" masters. Synopsis. The film is about a Turkmenian who defends his homeland from invasion. He is captured, tortured, and brainwashed into serving his homeland's conquerors. He is so completely turned that he kills his mother when she attempts to rescue him from captivity.