Entries are pouring in for the 97th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category as countries scramble to submit their entries before the November 14 deadline. Kazakhstan is latest national team to select national contenders, choosing Ashat Kuchinchirekov’s coming-of-age story Paulina Salou.
The film premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival last year and won the Best Film Award at the Kazakh National Film Awards Tulpars. This marks Kuchinchirekov’s feature film debut as a director. International film fans will remember him for his performances in Sergei Dvortsevoy’s films I’m plugging inwhich won the Grand Prize in the “Un Certain Regard” category at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Aika In 2018, the film was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best International Film, but was not nominated.
Paulina Salou The story focuses on a little boy in rural Kazakhstan who is given to his grandmother at birth, in line with the nomadic tradition of “Bauryna Salu”, in which close relatives rather than the child’s biological parents are responsible for raising the child to adulthood. When his grandmother dies, a 12-year-old boy lives with his parents for the first time and works to rebuild his relationship with them. In this feature, Kuchinchirekov draws on his own experience growing up with his grandparents in the Bauryna Salu tradition. Wide Management is handling international sales of the feature.
Kazakhstan receives one nomination in the Best International Feature Film competition for Sergei Bodrov Mongol in 2007, but has yet to win.
The shortlist of contenders for Best International Feature Film will be announced on December 17.
