Today, the press center of the XVI Eurasia IFF hosted two press conferences with participants of national and international competitions.

The heavyweights of the national cinema and, accordingly, the main favorites of the national competition were the first to perform. “Poet”, triumphantly going around the world and collecting festival awards: “Best Director” of the Tokyo Film Festival, the LEFFEST Grand Prix in Portugal, also the film was recently released in France. “Scheme”, which at the beginning of the year won the main prize of the Generation section of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival and “Dos Mukasan”, which has an audience success and impressive box office. 

The first film was presented by director Darezhan Omirbayev, producer Julia Kim and one of the actresses of the film Aliya Bopezhanova. Darezhan thanked the festival for the opportunity to show our viewers the picture once again, and Aliya told about her role and cooperation with Omirbayev. In turn, producer Julia Kim elaborated on the idea of creating a separate National competition of the Eurasia IFF.

“I looked at the list of films and my heart rejoiced. I realized all this scale, boom, dawn, which is now going on in Kazakh cinema only when I saw this list. It's cool,” - she said.

The creators of the popular hit “Dos-Mukasan” - director Aydin Sahaman and screenwriter Efrat Sharipov - were the next to answer journalists' questions.

“It is a great honor for us as young cinematographers to be in the same circle with such masters of Russian cinema. We grew up on Eurasia. In our student years, it was a great event for us, we waited for this festival every year. And we are very glad that we are participating in the competition today,” said the director of the film A. Sakhaman.

In turn, the director of the film “Scheme” Farhat Sharipov dwelled on the details of the filming of the film, including the difficulties faced by the group during the pandemic.

Participants of the International competition traditionally spoke at the second press conference. These are the director of the Azerbaijani film “Cold as Marble” Asif Rustamov, the screenwriter and director of the film “The Road to Nowhere” Kamara Kamalova from Uzbekistan and the producer of Kim Ki Duk's latest film “The Call of God” Arthur Weber, shot in a co-production of Estonia, Lithuania and Kyrgyzstan.

The final working day of the festival ended with a master class by the Chairman of the Jury of the National competition Laila Pakalnina from Latvia. The director and screenwriter of 32 documentaries, 5 short films and 6 full-length feature films shared her experience at international film festivals and gladly answered the questions of the guests of the master class.

And tomorrow the official closing of the festival will take place, where all the winners will be announced.