The Scent of the Wormwood (2022)

Ten-year-old Maksat with his mother and sister moves to his mother's native village: where he meets and makes friends with two neighboring boys. It turns out mom is in a quarrel with her father. Soon, the father of Maksat also comes for the family and remain to live together. In order to win his son again, his father gives Maksat a young stallion, the same as all the neighboring boys. Father, a computer science teacher and a former alcoholic, is trying to establish a new life. But his father is not satisfied with his position in this village, because now he is a "heap-kuyo" - this is how the Kyrgyz speak unflattering words about a man who lives with his native wife ... Eldiyar, every day, goes to a stop and waits for a bus coming from the city - he waits for his mother to return. And every day the bus arrives without mom. And only after leaving the bus, Eldiyar goes to play with the rest of the guys. And then one day, my mother gets out of the bus. Eldiyar is beside himself with happiness. But he still does not know that his mother came to say goodbye to him, perhaps forever. Azamat is forced to fight every day with his cousin uncle, the father of Eldiyar, for an unfair accusation of arson of hay. But he also cannot reveal the true culprit, his friend, because then he will get even more. The intertwined lives, the thirst for profit, the pride and other problems of adults slowly and imperceptibly begin to affect children's destinies, leaving a bitter taste of wormwood. The smell of wormwood in every Kyrgyz and Asian is associated simultaneously with a bitter taste and a tremulous sense of childhood.