Kyrgyzstani director Radik Eshimov's horror-drama "Burning" (original title "Ot") has won 'Best Screenplay' at two Kyrgyzstan film festivals and drawn critical praise for its unconventional structure. It is Eshimov's first horror film after a career largely spent in comedy and crime drama, and it has been likened to Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" for its technique of retelling the same events from multiple, contradictory perspectives, leaving audiences to piece together the truth themselves.

The story centres on a house fire in a small town and the young couple, Marat and Asel, who lived there, whose recent loss of a child has fuelled local gossip and suspicion. Divided into three chapters – 'Guilt', 'Excuse' and 'The Reason' – the film revisits the lead-up to the fire through the eyes of different central characters, each version altering details and raising fresh doubts about family tensions, mental health and even suggestions of black magic. Reviewers highlight the tightly constructed script, restrained performances (particularly Aisanat Edigeeva as Asel) and sparse score, and note the film is currently available internationally exclusively via IndiePix Unlimited on Amazon Prime Video.