Song From the Southern Seas (Pesn' Juzhnykh Morej)

Two couples, one Russian and one Kazakhstani, are neighbors in a beautiful, semi-desolate region adjoining the arid grasslands of the Great Steppe.

The couples live in intimate proximity, sharing one another's joys and woes, but when the fair-skinned Russians give birth to a boy with a decidedly darker complexion, the couples enter into a 15-year period of suspicion and acrimony.

Sarulu's gorgeous, wonderfully acted film, which mingles everyday brutality with the most sublime expressions of feeling, examines the meaning of family at the crossroads of different cultures and histories.