Kazakhstan chooses Bauryna Salu as best international film

The nominations for the 97th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category are coming thick and fast, as countries rush to submit their entries before the November 14 deadline. Kazakhstan is the latest to choose a domestic contender, selecting Askhat Kuchinchirekov's coming-of-age tale Greetings from Bauryna.

The feature film premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival last year and stood out at Kazakhstan's national film awards, the Tulpars, winning Best Film. It marks Kuchinchirekov's debut as a feature film director. International film buffs will remember him for his performances in Sergei Dvortsevoy Tulipwhich won the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2008, and the Aika in 2018, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but was not nominated.

Greetings from Bauryna focuses on a young boy from rural Kazakhstan who is given to his grandmother at birth, in accordance with the nomadic tradition of “Bauryna Salu,” in which a close relative, rather than the child's biological parents, is tasked with raising a child to adulthood. When his grandmother dies, the 12-year-old boy moves in with his parents for the first time and struggles to reconnect with them. For the film, Kuchinchirekov drew on his own experiences growing up with his grandparents under the Bauryna Salu tradition. Wide Management is handling international sales of the film.

Kazakhstan has been nominated once in the competition for Best International Feature Film, for Sergei Bodrov Mongolian in 2007, but hasn't won yet.

The shortlist for Best International Feature Film will be announced on December 17. Nominations will be announced on January 17, 2025. The 2025 Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, March 2.

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