Having graduated from the Kazakh National Academy of Arts named after Temirbek Zhurgenov as a film director, Askhat Kuchinchirekov (b. 1982) started out his career as a lead cast in Sergey Dvortsevoy’s film Tulpan (2008, Un Certain Regard Award Winner at the 61st Cannes Film Festival). In 2013, Kuchinchirekov was awarded the Best Short Award at the Dubai International Film Festival and attended the Best Short Film Competition at the Tampere Film Festival with his first social drama, Benzin Bitti.
He spent the past three years working on his debut feature film, Bauryna Salu, named after a nomadic tradition whereby the firstborn child is given to the grandparents for them to look after instead of its parents.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and emerging. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
