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Dear Film Industry Watch team,
Here is some information about public funding in Kazakhstan.
Public funding of films in Kazakhstan has never been transparent. In 2019, the State Center for the Support of National Cinema (hereinafter “the Fund”) was established, subordinated to the Ministry of Culture. This Fund holds a pitch session once a year and selects film projects for state funding. But every year the pitch and selection of projects takes place with scandals and accusations of corruption. The Fund’s top management has changed 3 times since 2019. The first CEO is now under arrest. The second CEO was fired after a corruption scandal. The results of the pitch held in 2021 have been cancelled.
Since 2023, the Fund has legalized censorship and approved the topics on which films can be made with state funding. Applications for state funding can be submitted only for these topics approved by the Fund. Examples of topics from 2025: love for the homeland, family, military-patriotic films, healthy lifestyle and sports, Kazakh fairy tales, etc. (https://www.kazakhcinema.kz/tpost/dm13ax9ou1-tsentr-kino-napominaet-o-prioritetnih-te) The members of the Fund’s Expert Council, who select projects, always make sure that the scripts do not contain swear words, a bad image of Kazakhstan, a bad image of the Kazakh police and army (they say this during the pitch).
The selection of projects is carried out in several stages. The last stage before approval by the Kazakh Ministry of Culture is the selection by the Interdepartmental Commission. We could not find the composition of this commission, but it is known that it includes members of Parliament, officials of various Ministries, that is, people who are completely incompetent in the film industry. And the Fund’s Expert council, which selects projects during the pitch, consists of members of the ruling party or writers loyal to the ruling party and a small number of real filmmakers, of course loyal to the ruling party.
Considering that most of the films financed by the Fund are of little interest to major international festivals, last two years the Fund is very proud that its films are actively participating in Russian festivals and proudly announces this in the news.
2025 selection
In 2025, the pitch has already taken place and the list of selected projects must now be approved by the Ministry of Culture. 11 fiction feature film projects were selected. There is not a single female director among these 11 fiction projects. There is not a single director or producer among these 11 projects with a successful filmography, either at festivals or at the box office. The directors and producers of almost all the selected fiction projects had previously made TV-series for Kazakh state TV-channels. This is not surprising, since the current CEO of the Fund used to work at Kazakh state TV channels and he is completely incompetent in the film industry.
One of the selected projects (“Сыбыс”) is the first feature film with a 29-page script (only one member of the Fund’s Expert Council asked about the number of pages of the script). The director of this project is little known, but the producer received financing for another film from the Fund in 2023.
One of the most expensive selected projects is the feature film (“Кунес”) with the requested state funding in the amount of 559 million KZT (1 million USD). It was presented by the producer and the scriptwriter during the pitch and at the pitch they said that the director of the film is not yet known. We think this is the first case in world history when a project with a large budget is selected without even knowing who the director will be.
6 of the 11 fiction projects selected had directors or producers who had previously received Fund funding, and these Fund-financed films had not been successful at festivals or at the box office.
https://www.kazakhcinema.kz/page43211353.html – the official site of the State Center for the Support of National Cinema.
Thank you for your work and site.
All the best,
An independent Kazakh filmmaker
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