factory manager
The Kazakh village Karatas has long been subjugated by a criminal boss called Poshaev. He provides housing and jobs for the locals but will ruthlessly execute anyone who dares to oppose him. This is the lesson the pauper Arzu is about to learn first-hand—his wife Karina has informed the police about the crimes that are taking place there. Arzu is a cripple; now he must raise his little daughter alone. He is so helpless and grief-stricken that he doesn’t even seem to be contemplating revenge. Poshaev takes him under his wing and offers him the position of a guard at a building site. Soon Arzu has a chance to prove his loyalty, and he becomes Poshaev’s right hand. But where do Arzu’s real loyalties lie—with his boss or with the idea of justice?
Masked figures with machine guns march into the secondary school in Karatas, take the pupils hostage, and execute one of them. They make no demands. Silent terror is their modus operandi. Seeing as the army will take two days to arrive due to a snowstorm, maths teacher Tazshi decides to assemble his own assault team: his ex-wife, the gym teacher, the cowardly school principal, an alcoholic night watchman, the village idiot, and an incompetent chief of police.
A group of friends goes to the forest. The guys are led there by curiosity: one of them received a strange message indicating the coordinates. Arriving at the scene, they decide that it was a prank. But as the sun sets, the heroes understand that the hunt has begun on them.
Two workers are having a leisurely conversation. More and more often people see in the sky red tails of comets, wonder creatures appear from nowhere and a roar is said to be coming from the underground. What is the meaning of it all? – asks one of them. The other replies that he has never seen anything like that in his life. And even if all of the above mentioned exists, is it worthwhile paying attention to it? The important thing is to do one’s job because life goes its own way.
