On 14 February, a film screening was held for the KIMEP Weekend Film Challenge. This semester’s theme was romantic, in honour of Valentine’s Day.
According to organiser Cole Russing, there were 148 participants this time, and their number is growing every semester.
Based on the results of the competition, first place for Best Film award went to Lost & Found.
Details of film production
Nozanin Khassanova, who worked on the film What Is Love? shared her motivation for participating: “I was inspired simply by motivation and the fact that you need to participate in such student events. You can’t miss out on this, because you might regret it later. And because I had participated in festivals before, I thought, why not?”
The film also won the Best Editing award, about which Alim Narymbetov said: “The theme was 14 February, and I thought, why not use something unconventional? I was inspired by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which mixes melodrama with elements of comics and video games. It’s such a crazy story, so why not give it a try? Also, not many people have seen this film, so it’s quite competitive.”
Nurtilek Zheten shared some interesting details about the film Never Say Never: “We reshot the kissing scene about 20 times to get the best angle.” However, he was also disappointed with the results. “The nomination upset me a little. Because we were hoping… Well, we won the Audience Choice award through the vote, but we wanted even more nominations.”
Opinions about competitors’ films
“My impressions of other films… I really liked Lost & Found and What is Love? I remember a scene in the second film when the main character sings the song of the same name. It was really funny. And then Lost & Found turned out to be like a romantic comedy, a light and enjoyable film. Next semester, I want to work with the directors of these films,” said Asemay Jumabaeva.
Kirill Tutushkin also shared his opinion on various films. “Well, I liked Still Burning the most; it was pretty good. Lost & Found, What is Love?, Never Say Never also, I guess. I didn’t understand The Letter, The Collision, and I don’t remember everything about Wonderful Taste either.”
When asked about the distribution of the first place for Best Film category, he said, “I think between Still Burning and Lost & Found.”
Zheten expressed his admiration for the film Yes, I Would: “My favourite scene was the one with the worm. It was really cool and funny. I really loved this film because it’s so cheerful and light-hearted. It’s that light-heartedness that was probably missing from all the other films.”
However, another film evoked negative emotions: “If we’re talking about my least favourite film, it would be Natural Selection. It was a little, how to say, unethical. It seemed very objectifying. I don’t know why the jury liked this work,” said Zheten.
The winner’s words
The actress who played the lead role in the film Lost & Found, said, “I’m so happy! Honestly, I didn’t expect it. At the beginning, we put a lot of effort and energy into this film, so we were very nervous and wanted to win at least some kind of award. And then, when the nominations were announced one after another, and then the long-awaited first place… It’s an indescribable feeling! We just exploded. And I am very happy and grateful to my entire team, because this is the achievement of each and every one of us.”
Interview with the organiser
Cole Russing is holding the KIMEP Weekend Film Challenge for the fourth time, and these are his observations:
“Every semester the quality of the films improves. I was just thrilled with this batch this year, this semester.”
“The best visual storytelling was definitely The Library, because you didn’t need to understand the language to be able to understand the story. I thought the film Lost & Found was really well edited and helped tell the story through the editing, which was great,” said Russing about the films.
“The thing that impressed me was the range of the different types of romantic films. I mean, I said romance film and we went from very sweet to mystery to more art types of films.”
Russing also shared plans for the future of the KIMEP Weekend Film Challenge: “Well, I’ll send out a survey to everyone who participated and get their feedback. I do that every semester to try to improve. So next semester I’m thinking about adding an extra day. So we’ll kick off on Thursday and have them in by Monday. Then I’m thinking about changing up from a prop to a line in the film that they need to use but just leaving it wide open.”