To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die

Striking and poetic, TO GET TO HEAVEN FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE confirms director Djamshed Usmonov (Angel On The Right) as one of the brightest talents of post-Soviet cinema. Sparer, bleaker and much more unsettling than his previous films, it stars Khurched Golibekov as the sullen, wide-eyed Kamal, who has been married for a few months, but is unable to consummate his marriage. Learning that there is nothing physically wrong with him after visiting a doctor, Kamal sets off to the city in an attempt to cure his impotence. With his child-like, country-boy naiveté, he struggles to meet anyone until a chance encounter on a bus when he picks up a young married Russian factory worker. This accidental meeting takes him on a far more troubling and darker journey than he was counting on…

Likened by critics to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 'A Short Film About Love', Usmanov's absolutely sure-footed direction and storytelling make for a film that gently, gradually pulls the rug out from under our feet, in a classic example of less-is-more film-making.