Gulbara Tolomushova


Gulbara Tolomushova is a Kyrgyzstani film director, cinematographer and film critic.
She was born in Frunze as the daughter of a film editor mother who traveled frequently to Moscow for work. She went on to study cinematography in Moscow, graduating from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography in 1989. Since then she has directed numerous films and written about the medium for both internet and print publications. She has also served on a number of film festival juries. As a director she specializes in documentaries on the subject of human rights. Employed by the Department of Cinematography of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, she is a member of the International Federation of Film Critics and the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. From 2004 until 2010 she was the deputy chair of the Kyrgyz Union of Filmmakers. She has also worked as a researcher at the Aitmatov Institute for Literature and Languages at the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences. She has received a number of awards from the government of Kyrgyzstan for her work. Tolomushova has called Battleship Potemkin the first truly great film that she saw in her life.