Director Ben van Lieshout will be present on the premiere night, 9 October. After the screening, which starts at 7 p.m., film critic Hugo Emmerzael will talk to him.
Salamatty Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is a huge country, the largest in Central Asia, but it is also very sparsely populated. It is not surprising that many people, especially those living in remote areas, have little or no access to medical care. To reach these people, a train runs through the country for eight months of the year with 35 doctors and medical equipment on board; that train has a name: Salamatty Kazakhstan, Healthy Kazakhstan. The train travels through 17 provinces, stops at 121 stations and covers more than 18,000 km. Every day, everyone is welcome to consult a doctor, and everyone is helped.
In this unique railway film, filmmaker Ben van Lieshout shows how the doctors and all the other train staff work together in this equally unique social project. The encounters between the doctors and the local population sometimes result in special and colourful moments, but Van Lieshout portrays everyone involved with respect and empathy.
