Kazakhstan to produce more animation projects

Kazakhstan is to produce more animated films. This year the state will fund eight projects. And one of them belongs to the team of the young filmmaker Dilshat Rakhmatullin. In an 11-year period their studio has created dozens of cartoons. For example, this spring the short film “Lullaby” was recognized as the best animation at a competition in Turkey. In addition, their new film masterpiece called “Ashina. The Legend of the Sky Wolves” is scheduled to be presented in late 2023.

“This is a 3D cartoon, originally in Kazakh, and dubbed into Russian. We are also going to hold negotiations with Turkey, with the Turkic-speaking world, about the possibility for them to translate the cartoon into their own languages. Our production quality is not worse than our neighbors’; we are even better in some ways. Therefore, we can be engaged in film distribution in neighboring countries and produce competitive movies,” said Rakhmatullin. The state will also support two projects of the Nur-Sultan media company. At the contest to support the national cinema, the team from the Kazakh capital presented a fiction film dedicated to Almaty and a documentary “Yeva. Batyr kyz.’ The latter tells the story of a real girl from Almaty region, who from an early age was deeply interested in kokpar, which is a traditional sport predominantly for the men.

“Yeva has no fear. As you could see, there are steep slopes going up and down, and she rides them skillfully. Not every man can muster the courage to do so,” scriptwriter and director Temirbek Amanzhol said.

Part of the film material for the documentary has already been filmed. The authors of the project intend to organize private screenings already this year. This is the first major large-scale project for the creative team. The state will fund 70 percent of the production costs. And it bears noting, that a total of 62 domestic film projects will receive support from the state budget this year. “In total, over 200 applications were submitted for the competition. 60-70 percent of them are youth projects. This is a new generation in Kazakh film industry, their works are more creative, and they are more fearless and independent. The winners will begin turning their ideas into reality in the near future,” Abzal Mukhimov, Deputy Chairperson of the Kazakh National Cinema Support Center, said.

Therefore, new talents will soon appear in the domestic film industry and they will become popular not only in Kazakhstan, but also abroad. This year the Days of Kazakh Cinema are planned to be held in almost 20 countries, including the US, Canada and Germany.