Kazakhstan has submitted Askhat Kuchinchirekov’s coming of age tale Bauryna Salu to the Best International Feature Film category of the 97th Academy Awards, after it won best film at the country’s Tulpar cinema awards.
The drama revolves around a boy called Yersultan who was handed over to his grandmother at birth in accordance with a nomadic tradition called ‘Bauryna Salu’, to grow up disconnected from his parents.
When Yersultan turns 12, his grandmother dies and he goes to live with his parents for the first time. He struggles to restore his relationship with them, especially with his father, while dealing with the challenges of puberty at the same time.
The director drew on his own experiences growing up with his grandparents under the Bauryna Salu tradition for the film, which gives a rare insight into rural life in Kazakhstan.
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The picture world premiered in the New Directors sidebar of San Sebastian in 2023.
Kuchinchirekov worked as an assistant director to award-winning director Sergey Dvortsevoy also appearing as an actor in the latter’s films Tulpan (2008) and Ayka (2019), which both played in Cannes. He made his directorial debut with the 2013 short film Gas Is Over. Bauryna salu is his feature film debut.
Kazakhstan has submitted 17 films to the Oscars since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. It has been nominated once for Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol in 2007, while Ayka made it to the shortlist in 2018.
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