Singapore actors Sheila Sim, Sunny Pang and Shane Mardjuki, were among the special guests who graced the gala opening of the 33rd Singapore International Film Festival, at speciality arthouse cinema Projector Picturehouse.
The trio headline Boi Kwong’s “Geylang,” a breathless, full-throttle crime thriller set in Singapore’s infamous red-light district. The film is being screened in the festival’s Singapore Panorama sidebar for local filmmakers.
“I am glad that local films make up a quarter of this year’s overall line-up at the festival. It’s a strong showing and testament to the achievements of our homegrown talents.” said Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information. “We welcome and appreciate good films from around the world. At the same time, we will always support local filmmakers through platforms like the Singapore Media Festival and Sgiff and help them shine brighter on the international stage.”
Kazakh actors Berik Aytzhanov and...
The trio headline Boi Kwong’s “Geylang,” a breathless, full-throttle crime thriller set in Singapore’s infamous red-light district. The film is being screened in the festival’s Singapore Panorama sidebar for local filmmakers.
“I am glad that local films make up a quarter of this year’s overall line-up at the festival. It’s a strong showing and testament to the achievements of our homegrown talents.” said Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information. “We welcome and appreciate good films from around the world. At the same time, we will always support local filmmakers through platforms like the Singapore Media Festival and Sgiff and help them shine brighter on the international stage.”
Kazakh actors Berik Aytzhanov and...
- 11/24/2022
- by Marcus Lim
- Variety Film + TV
Adilkhan Yerzanov has created a style of his own, with his intelligent humor, pointed satire, western-like violence and dystopian-looking locations. His overall approach, with the exception of violence (at least physical one) finds its apogee in “Ademoka”, a movie that just won the Netpac Award at the Warsaw Film Festival.
Ademoka screened at Warsaw Film Festival
The titular girl is an immigrant from Kyrgyzstan, who lives in Kazakhstan with her family and a number of fellow refugees, forced to be a beggar in order to survive. During a police raid, though, a policeman sees her sketches, and, realizing her talent, tells her to go to a local school and ask for Ahab, a man who will supposedly help her enroll. It is there Ademoka’s odyssey begins, as she finds herself fighting with a Kafkian system that seems to be set against her, with the help she eventually receives from Ahab being quite questionable,...
Ademoka screened at Warsaw Film Festival
The titular girl is an immigrant from Kyrgyzstan, who lives in Kazakhstan with her family and a number of fellow refugees, forced to be a beggar in order to survive. During a police raid, though, a policeman sees her sketches, and, realizing her talent, tells her to go to a local school and ask for Ahab, a man who will supposedly help her enroll. It is there Ademoka’s odyssey begins, as she finds herself fighting with a Kafkian system that seems to be set against her, with the help she eventually receives from Ahab being quite questionable,...
- 10/23/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The Kazakh village Karatas is terrorized by a criminal boss called Poshaev (Yerzhanov’s regular Daniyar Alshinov), a muscular no-neck tug who is allergic to the slightest rebellion against his way of doing business. As a self-proclaimed ruler of the area, surrounded by a group of armed, merciless killers tasked with punishing anyone who dares to question his unwritten laws, he is bigger than life and as unpredictable as the weather conditions in the Kazakh steppe.
Goliath is screening at Venice International Film Festival
Set in a dramatic landscape with naked mountains and open grassland, “Goliath” is a modern western with nasty cowboys and fearful locals, whose options to survive are reduced to fleeing, or doing what they are told – a set of rules never logical enough to end well. Heads roll or get blown off, but make no mistake thinking you will get what’s going on better than characters in the fim,...
Goliath is screening at Venice International Film Festival
Set in a dramatic landscape with naked mountains and open grassland, “Goliath” is a modern western with nasty cowboys and fearful locals, whose options to survive are reduced to fleeing, or doing what they are told – a set of rules never logical enough to end well. Heads roll or get blown off, but make no mistake thinking you will get what’s going on better than characters in the fim,...
- 9/12/2022
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
If a local village warlord discovers he’s in a movie titled Goliath, he better watch his back. It doesn’t matter what his origin story is—and Poshaev (Daniyar Alshinov) has a bloody one—when power is never absolute. Yes, the villagers hail him as a hero for using his formidable presence to extort jobs for the community at a foreign investment firm’s tungsten mine. Yes, he works to keep drugs out of his domain by ruthlessly gunning down any rival gangs who dare to bring it across his borders. He’s still just a man, though. Still at the whims of those he trusts to stand by his side with guns in their hands. They’re the ones to worry about. They’re the ones with something to gain.
The first two-thirds of Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s film are interesting precisely because the man everyone fears might seek...
The first two-thirds of Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s film are interesting precisely because the man everyone fears might seek...
- 9/9/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Before he became “famous” with his rather intelligent and humorous genre approach in 2020, with “Yellow Cat” and “Ulbolsyn”, Adilkhan Yerzhanov had directed a number of other movies, with “A Dark, Dark Man” featuring the same traits, but also being darker than his latest efforts. Let us take things from the beginning though.
on Amazon
The introduction sets the tone of the whole movie in the most eloquent fashion. A boy has been killed in an aul (Kazakh village) and a police detective is examining the body in the most amateur way possible, behind a cornfield that seems like the perfect background for a Stephen King novel. After the “examination” is over, the policeman calls the local simpleton Pekuar, bribes him with candy to masturbate in a cup, and then proceeds on placing the semen on the dead body, framing the young man who barely understands what is going on.
on Amazon
The introduction sets the tone of the whole movie in the most eloquent fashion. A boy has been killed in an aul (Kazakh village) and a police detective is examining the body in the most amateur way possible, behind a cornfield that seems like the perfect background for a Stephen King novel. After the “examination” is over, the policeman calls the local simpleton Pekuar, bribes him with candy to masturbate in a cup, and then proceeds on placing the semen on the dead body, framing the young man who barely understands what is going on.
- 7/6/2022
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
To mark the release of Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It, out now, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.
Bickering husband and wife Dastan (Daniar Alshinov) and Zhanna (Asel Kaliyeva) are expecting their first child and Dastan is desperate to get away for one last weekend of fun before the baby arrives and he must finally settle down. He rounds up his two best pals for a boys’ weekend of fishing and fun, but little do they know their plan for a chilled trip to the lake is about to turn into mad and deadly mayhem.
After accidentally witnessing a murder by a group of thugs, the three friends are suddenly on the run to escape their violent clutches and then things turn even wilder. With a mysterious one-eyed man out for blood and a desperate wannabe bride and her pushy father in the mix, the body count starts to rise.
Bickering husband and wife Dastan (Daniar Alshinov) and Zhanna (Asel Kaliyeva) are expecting their first child and Dastan is desperate to get away for one last weekend of fun before the baby arrives and he must finally settle down. He rounds up his two best pals for a boys’ weekend of fishing and fun, but little do they know their plan for a chilled trip to the lake is about to turn into mad and deadly mayhem.
After accidentally witnessing a murder by a group of thugs, the three friends are suddenly on the run to escape their violent clutches and then things turn even wilder. With a mysterious one-eyed man out for blood and a desperate wannabe bride and her pushy father in the mix, the body count starts to rise.
- 2/21/2022
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Kazakhstani caper sends Dastan off for one last fishing weekend with his mates before the baby arrives, but horror descends in more ways than one
Deliverance meets The Hangover in this wacky-but-slapdash horror-comedy from Kazakhstan. It’s juvenile, crass and gross-out, with funny bits depressingly few and far between. Daniar Alshinov is Dastan, a man who is under the cosh of his pregnant wife Zhanna (Asel Kaliyeva); her only personality trait is that she’s a nagging ballbreaker. Though to be fair, most of the characters here feel like one-dimensional stereotypes.
As a last hurrah before the birth of the baby, Dastan has arranged to go fishing with two old buddies. One of them, Arman (Azamat Marklenov) owns an online sex toy business, so arrives with a camper van full of cheapo factory seconds blow-up dolls. Things get steadily more unhilarious from there. An excruciating set piece on the road...
Deliverance meets The Hangover in this wacky-but-slapdash horror-comedy from Kazakhstan. It’s juvenile, crass and gross-out, with funny bits depressingly few and far between. Daniar Alshinov is Dastan, a man who is under the cosh of his pregnant wife Zhanna (Asel Kaliyeva); her only personality trait is that she’s a nagging ballbreaker. Though to be fair, most of the characters here feel like one-dimensional stereotypes.
As a last hurrah before the birth of the baby, Dastan has arranged to go fishing with two old buddies. One of them, Arman (Azamat Marklenov) owns an online sex toy business, so arrives with a camper van full of cheapo factory seconds blow-up dolls. Things get steadily more unhilarious from there. An excruciating set piece on the road...
- 2/15/2022
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
Incompetent goodfellas hunting down amateur hour homeboys. A fishing hook cast through the earlobe of an unsuspecting layman. A floatie made entirely of blow-up dolls. Unbridled bridesmaids snatching husbands up off the streets. Small town suspicious types boasting butcher knives. One-eyed maniacs slashing their way through sanctioned buffoonery. Explosions. Eviscerations. Beheadings. Ball-busting. Horse-bucking. Juice cartons slowly stroked a little too enthusiastically. This is "Sweetie, You Won't Believe It," and nothing can prepare you for its chaotic energy.
Set on the day that his pregnant wife is scheduled to give birth, "Sweetie" follows Dastan (Daniar Alshinov), a financially struggling...
The post Sweetie, You Won't Believe It Review: An Uproarious and Chaotic Slapstick Caper [Telluride Horror Show 2021] appeared first on /Film.
Set on the day that his pregnant wife is scheduled to give birth, "Sweetie" follows Dastan (Daniar Alshinov), a financially struggling...
The post Sweetie, You Won't Believe It Review: An Uproarious and Chaotic Slapstick Caper [Telluride Horror Show 2021] appeared first on /Film.
- 11/1/2021
- by Kalyn Corrigan
- Slash Film
If you're a fan of Three Stooges-style silent slapstick but wish it came with a lot more gore, then, Sweetie, you won't believe what a treat you are in for with the latest from Kazakhstani director Yernar Nurgaliyev, which mixes physical comedy with a spring break vibe and throws in a handful of western and gangster elements for good measure. The result, while not always entirely successful, is most certainly never boring.
At its heart is the hapless and henpecked Dastan (Daniar Alshinov) - the gender definitions throughout the film are as broad as the comedy - who despite his heavily pregnant wife Zhanna's (Asel Kaliyeva) hectoring is determined to spend a day fishing with his buddies Arman (Azamat Marklenov) and Murat (Erlan Primbetov). The sensibilities of the superstitious Arman are clear from the off, given that he has a load of faulty blow-up sex dolls in the back of his van,...
At its heart is the hapless and henpecked Dastan (Daniar Alshinov) - the gender definitions throughout the film are as broad as the comedy - who despite his heavily pregnant wife Zhanna's (Asel Kaliyeva) hectoring is determined to spend a day fishing with his buddies Arman (Azamat Marklenov) and Murat (Erlan Primbetov). The sensibilities of the superstitious Arman are clear from the off, given that he has a load of faulty blow-up sex dolls in the back of his van,...
- 8/9/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Dark, dark humor and darker, darker themes prowl and glower through the desiccated cornfields and barren dustbowls of Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s bleakly dazzling police procedural “A Dark-Dark Man.” Premiering in San Sebastian and going on to play at the Busan Film Festival, this seventh feature from Yerzhanov, whose last film “The Gentle Indifference of the World” bowed in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, is a staggeringly controlled, slow-burn scorcher of a crime thriller.
The opening salvo is already not for the faint of heart: A police detective is examining the dead body of a small boy in an abandoned outbuilding beside a sinister cornfield. With offhand, practiced weariness, the detective doctors the scene, calling in slow-witted local misfit Pekuar (Teoman Khos), bribing him with chocolate bars to masturbate into a small cup, and carefully placing the semen on the dead body, thus framing the harmless, gormless Pekuar for the crime.
The opening salvo is already not for the faint of heart: A police detective is examining the dead body of a small boy in an abandoned outbuilding beside a sinister cornfield. With offhand, practiced weariness, the detective doctors the scene, calling in slow-witted local misfit Pekuar (Teoman Khos), bribing him with chocolate bars to masturbate into a small cup, and carefully placing the semen on the dead body, thus framing the harmless, gormless Pekuar for the crime.
- 10/24/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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