Eurasia International Film Festival (Kazakhstan)
Eurasia IFF was founded in 1998 and organised with the Confederation of Filmmakers’ Unions, headed by Rustam Ibragimbekov (1939–2022). For the first edition, Gulnara Abikeyeva was the festival’s co-ordinator, and in 2005 she became its artistic director. The first festival was held from 4–11 October 1998 in Almaty, in the city’s Arman Cinema. It offered a programme with three competitions of films from the former Soviet republics: features, documentaries, and animation, as well as several special programmes.
The editions from 2005–2007 were produced by Sergei Azimov, then head of Kazakhfilm, and comprised international competitions with films from Europe and Asia, Kazakh panoramas and Central Asian panoramas/competitions. They were held in Almaty in late September/early October.
The V edition was held in September 2008 and produced by Gulnara Sarsenova. Fir this edition, the festival moved to Astana to mark its 10th anniversary as capital. The VI Eurasia Film Festival was held in September 2010 in Almaty, and was followed by regular editions from 2011 until 2017; the 2017 edition took place in Astana, which hosted the World Exhibition in that year. In 2018 the festival was held in Astana in July; in 2019 it was held in the summer in Astana (then Nursultan).
In December 2022 and in November 2024, Eurasia was held with short-notice announcements in Almaty. The edition in 2024 was not state-supported and organised by Kazakhfilm.
The festival has no dedicated website and the catalogues have no archive. They appear here in digitised form.
Forum of the Confederation of Filmmakers’ Unions
When the USSR collapsed, so did the Union of Filmmakers of the USSR (Soyuz kinematografistov SSSR); the Filmmakers’ Unions in the former Soviet republics took charge of their own affairs in the new independent states, but remained united in the Confederation of these Unions, including the post-Soviet countries (CIS) and Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Confederation Filmmakers’ Unions of the former USSR ("Konfederatsiia Soyuzov") was chaired by Rustam Ibragimbekov (1939–2022), and organised a Forum annually in Moscow from 1998–2011 (with further isolated events in the 2010s, including a film school).
Locarno and Open Doors (2010)
A crucial impulse was set with the ‘Open Doors’ section at Locarno devoted in 2010 to Central Asia. Through connections the event facilitated with producers, a number of projects have been realised and made it onto the international festival circuit. The invited filmmakers were: Ella Vakkasova, Saodat Ismailova, and Shukhrat Karimov (Uzbekistan); Najeeb Mirza and Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov (Tajikistan); Lora Stepanskaya, with Bayram Abdullayev (Turkmenistan); Emir Baigazin, Nariman Turevbaev, and Adilkhan Yerzhanov (Kazakhstan); Elnura Osmonalieva, Erkin Saliev, and Nurlan Asanbekov (Kyrgyzstan). Maybe Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons made the biggest ‘splash’ with its Berlin award three years later.
The catalogue contains the project descriptions.
