[4] The film was released in the USSR in February 1989 with 1,000 prints in circulation and became a box office hit viewed by over 30 million cinemagoers.
He declared, in 1990, the motto of the New Wave of Kazakh cinema: "We demand no unified philosophy nor uniform artistic views on art.
[5] Nugmanov served as President of the Union of Kazakh Filmmakers from 1989 until 1992, when he wrote, directed and produced The Wild East, a post-apocalyptic punk samurai Ostern which attracted international acclaim at film festivals in Venice, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, and was awarded the Prix Special du Jury in Valenciennes, France.
The film marked the end of both the Kazakh New Wave and Nugmanov's active directorial career,[6] although he continued to write screenplays throughout the 1990s.
Nugmanov moved to Paris, France, in 1993 and currently serves as the General Director of the International Freedom Network, a London-based think tank created to foster democracy in the former Soviet Union.