Darezhan Omirbayev

Director, film scholar. A recipient of the Order of Kurmet (Kazakhstan) and the Order of Arts and Letters (France), Omirbayev was born in Kazakhstan in 1958. He graduated from the VGIK film studies department in 1987. His feature debut, Kairat (1992), won the Silver Leopard and the FIPRESCI Prize at Locarno, and received awards at Strasbourg, Nantes, and other festivals. His next film, Cardiogram (1995), earned recognition in Venice and won the Grand Prix in Singapore. Killer (1998) received the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes and won accolades in Karlovy Vary, Nantes, and Tehran. His film Chouga (2007) was ranked among the top ten films of the year by Cahiers du Cinéma. Other notable works include Student (2012, Un Certain Regard) and Poet (2022, Best Director award in Tokyo). In 2012, he released a photography album titled Silence.