Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since the dawn of time. From cave paintings to campfire stories to novels to film, at our core, we want and need to tell stories, and our memory is key to the process. What we write is informed by our remembered experiences, as is how we perceive and react to what is happening around us. This idea is central to the new film Burning (Ot), a Kyrgyz film written by Aizada Amangeldy and Dastan Madalbekov, and directed by Radik Eshimov. In the film, the citizens of a small town gather in a convenience store during a torrential rainstorm, and each gives their account of what happened to the family who lived in a nearby house that has just burned down.
Much like other films that play with memory, like Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Fincher’s Gone Girl, and Johnson’s The Last Jedi, each time the story is retold, it reflects the storyteller’s biases and assumptions, and the result is entirely different accounts of the same circumstances.
Link: https://thisisforreel.com/home/fantasia-2025-movie-review-burning-and-the-art-of-captivating-storytelling
“Burning” and the Art of Captivating Storytelling | ForReel
