In the middle of the Central Asian steppe sits Astana, the brand new capital of Kazakhstan. As the city celebrates its tenth anniversary, we see vignettes of life in a place that is growing and changing at a mind-boggling pace. Colorful and catty tour guides, a television news crew, and a pair of construction foremen are our companions as we traverse the city, watching monuments rise and celebrations take place, all under the seemingly ever-present eye of president-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev. The film is fascinating and offbeat, and questions the way the mixed cultures of migrants to Astana are melded and refashioned in the service of an ultra-modern utopia. In one scene, a group of painters are hired to sit in the city center and create “an artistic atmosphere” while a rainstorm blows away their canvases. As one artist puts it: “Culture isn’t a flowerbed that you can just replant.”  AK