Opening Film(18th Fresh Wave)

Movie Name: The Jackal
Language: Kazakh(English Subtitles)
Category: IIA
Duration: 8 mins
Director: Aisultan SEITOV

Movie Name: QAS
Language: Kazakh, Russian(Chinese, English Subtitles)
Category: IIA
Duration: 120 mins
Director: Aisultan SEITOV

Soviet Kazakhstan, 1928, a time marked by STALIN’s rapid collectivisation of farms and the most brutal famine the modern world had ever seen. Gravedigger Isatai is tasked with delivering a message to a distant town to find aid for his starving village. Taking his younger brother Alim with him, Isatai treks across the parched steppe, encountering a mysterious old man. Can Isatai uphold his ethical principles amidst such terrifying emptiness, even greater hunger, and hallucinations? For his debut feature film, Aisultan SEITOV returns to his homeland in Kazakhstan, where the vast dry land is transformed into a visual style that resembles a biting northern wind, shocking the senses, the unexpected magical images haunting and chilling. Winner of Best Director in the Asian New Talent Award of the Shanghai International Film Festival 2023. Also showing The Jackal (2016), another short by the same director.