Dvortsevoy’s first film is a portrait of a nomad shepard and his family camped in the Southern mountains of Kazakhstan. Unforgettable images—of a toddler fighting sleep to eat his bowl of sour cream, a camel undergoing nose piercing by pocket knife—combine in a mesmerizing documentation of life lived in a
forbidding landscape.

The highway of the title refers to a 2,000 mile stretch of dirt road in remote Kazakhstan.  Along this route a traveling family circus journeys in their crowded hand-cranked bus, stopping in villages to perform feats of strength and skill.  The filmmaker accompanies the Tadjibajevs, capturing their quarrels, performances, and intimate domestic moments.  Observing their daily life in all of its routine and mystery, Dvortsevoy creates “a testament to the magical power of film to transport the onlooker into other lives and distant lands, to kindle contemplation, offer perspective and excite with the poetic beauty of exotic images” (Lawrence Van Gelder).