This is the third feature film of Zhanna Issabayeva, independent filmmaker and an outsider of the Kazakhstan film world. Abandoned girls’ desperate lives are depicted in a frighteningly realistic way. Nagima, discharged from an orphanage upon reaching the age of adulthood, lives with her pregnant friend Anya, who also once lived in the orphanage. Confronting harsh reality, they are always economically distressed, with no one to turn to. Visiting her biological mother, Nagima is only maltreated before leaving. Then Anya dies during childbirth. Considering Anya’s infant to be her only family, Nagima chooses to raise her, but becomes engulfed in thoughts that the baby is destined to duplicate the same unhappy life, just like hers. Nagima’s final choice is quite shocking. Zhanna Issabayeva actually cast girls discharged from an orphanage, and that choice enhances the film’s atmosphere of reality. The film follows the girls’ lives, expressing compassion as well as a rage against the society that deserted them. Ultimately, this is about “human dignity.” (KIM Ji-Seok)