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EURASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN
The 1st Eurasia International Film Festival was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1998. The programme consisted of 172 features and the opening ceremony included a screening of Eisenstein’s masterpiece Battleship Potemkin - accompanied by a symphony orchestra. Hollywood actor Michael York, French actor Pierre Richard, British director Sally Potter, the Polish actress Barbara Brylska, the Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov and the experimental US director Godfrey Reggio were among the invited guests.
At the 2nd Eurasia International Film Festival held in 2005 - a whole seven years later - over 170 films from 30 countries were screened alongside retrospective reviews of the careers of South Korean director/writer Kim-Ki-Duk and Sarajevo’s Emir Kusturica. The Grand-Prix went to Kira Muratova for The Tuner and the Best Director award went to Alexander Sokurov for The Sun. Round-table conferences devoted to the development of Kazakh cinema in the context of globalisation were also held. Among the stars attending were Belgiun kick-boxing star Jean-Claude Van Damme, Italy’s Michele Placido and Ornella Muti and French screen goddess Catherine Deneuve. Theo Angelopoulos, the Greek director of Land and Freedom (1995) and Tonino Guerra, the legendary Italian scriptwriter of Antonioni’s Blow-Up and Fellini’s Amarcord gave masterclasses.
In 2006, during the 3rd Eurasia Film Festival, the Eurasia Grand Prix was awarded to the Kazakh film Notes of the Trackman - a debut feature by Zhanybek Zhetiruov. Best Director went to Gyang Yuan for Little Red Flowers and the Best Actor award went to the Japanese Matasokha Ibu for his performance in Swinging (by Miya Nishikawa). Iranian Ladan Mostofi was deemed Best Actress for Goodbye Life. Retrospectives of the work of Iranian master Mahsen Makhmalbaf and Germany’s Volker Schlöndorff were also mounted (Schlöndorff went on to make Ulzhan about a Frenchman’s travels through Kazakhstan – due for release now). Star guests included US actor Steven Seagal.
The 4th Eurasia International Film Festival took place in Almaty from the 23rd- 29th September 2007. The Festival was backed by the Kazakh Ministry of Culture & Information and organised by Kazakhfilm, the state-run film company. The Festival included screenings of new Kazakh and Central Asian films, plus a variety of films made further afield. Among the highlights were a Franco-Kazakh co-production titled Shuga by Kazakh New Wave director Darezhan Omirbayev and the much-anticipated Legacy, a French-Georgian co-production by director Géla Babluani, who last year won a Eurasia award for his thriller 13 Tzameti – currently being remade in Hollywood.
This year’s festival jury includes Argentine producer Ariel Rotter, Iranian actress Leila Hatami, Russian director Vladimir Khotinenko and Almaty’s own Ardak Amirkulov –who is also professor at the Almaty Film Institute. One of the founding father’s of Kazakh cinema, Mazhit Begalin, was honoured with a retrospective to tie-in with his 85th birthday. Special guests included the American actor Armand Assante, Indian star Nandita Das and French actors Sophie Marceau, Christophe Lambert and Gerard Depardieu.
