Ascel lives in a remote little village in Kyrgyzstan, where the young woman cares for her drunkard father and siblings in the wake of their mother’s death. Ascel is clever and resourceful, and does her best to get by, but nonetheless her father has promised her hand in marriage to a local sultan. Though her father works hard to convince her life will be lush with the sultan, matters are complicated by Ascel’s love for?and pregnancy by?another man still. When her lover suggests they elope, she agrees, but promptly abandons him at the altar and heads to Moscow on her own. The almost picaresque, <The Empty Home> slowly reveals the reasons why a 19-year-old’s daring decision is really the only choice available to her. The film is about outsiders who are unable to see a future for themselves in a social environment where new capitalism is quickly replacing a Soviet system where personal choice counted for very little. (KIM Jungsun)