Part Pulp Fiction, part Betty Blue, Nougmanov’s film portrays the attempt of an enigmatic drifter to get his ex-girlfriend off heroin. The couple escape to the Aral sea but find that the sea has all but disappeared. Boasting dangerous performances from Soviet rock stars, Viktor Tsoi and Peter Mamonov of Zvuki Mu, this film was the first to break the Soviet taboo of depicting drug addiction. It is widely seen as the film that created the Kazakh New Wave.