'Bauryna Salu' THR Presents Q&A With Director Askhat Kuchinchirekov & Producer Dias Feld

2 days ago

The Hollywood Reporter's Brian Davids sat down with Director Askhat Kuchinchirekov and Producer Dias Feld to discuss 'Bauryna Salu' in a THR Q&A powered by Vision Media.

Transcript

00:00hello i'm brian davids and welcome to the hollywood reporter presents q a with the

00:09filmmakers of baurina salu kazakhstan's entry for a best international feature film nomination

00:14at the upcoming 97th academy awards joining me today is writer director asat kuchinchirikov

00:21as well as producer diaz feld asat i want to start with you this is a film about a young boy

00:27who struggles to reintegrate into his birth family after being raised by his grandmother

00:32you were also raised by your grandmother as part of the kazakh tradition of baurina salu so

00:39i'm curious how much of this film is a recreation of your own life how autobiographical is it

00:46to be honest this tradition is common to any kazakh family and i grew up in this kind of

00:55traditional kazakh family and i was curious all my life why this is not shown in any movie or

01:03literature in kazakh culture and why still nobody made any poem or movie regarding this tradition

01:14i wanted to this movie to be a reflection of myself of this little boy who saw this from a very

01:24little uh from being a very little boy from my childhood

01:29so the director of photography anasa both grew up within this tradition and they wanted to reflect

01:40the inner world that they felt in the visual style of this film so your sultan story is it a mix of both

01:50of their stories is it a mix of uh how autobiographical is it how much is actual memories between you and

01:58your dp the emotional content all comes from their personal experiences but the plot of the film is

02:10dramatized

02:11i covered a film last year in another country where a mother gave up one of her children to

02:20uh her sister who was infertile so the child was raised by uh her aunt uh instead of her mother

02:27so i'm curious about the choice to uh i guess loan out the child to the grandmother is it so that the

02:34grandmother isn't alone at the end of her life what what's the reasoning behind the grandmother as the

02:40the recipient yeah this is a very old nomadic tradition you know about 300 years um that's been

02:47happening and there are many reasons why uh the child can be given away sometimes it is because

02:54the parents have a kid when they're very young you know 15 16 years old sometimes the child is sent

03:01away to relatives that live other way to kind of continue the family in a different place because

03:08the people are nomadic and everyone traveled around i've also heard stories of families that and

03:15all the relatives if um they can't have a child sometimes they'll take um it may be a siblings or

03:21you know some other relatives um child into their own care okay ds how did the story first come

03:27into your hands we met through mutual friends really um i was told uh um there's a young director

03:36who is finishing a film and is looking for support and for help um well first of all finishing and then

03:48getting out into the world and um i saw the film it was really powerful and i think i felt the way many

04:00people feel that people feel that it was really representative of our culture and i wanted to help

04:06it um take on life in the world the film at times feels like a documentary it feels like we're observing

04:16real life uh so what steps did the two of you take uh to kind of help create uh this realistic world

04:23uh this tradition and uh he wanted to create a visual style that would

04:53uh help people really in a palpable kind of tangible way experience what the child is

04:59experiencing you want to be as close as possible to a kind of documentary and realistic view

05:08so that people can really understand this tradition

05:13several of the characters are named after the actors so

05:17was that another way in which you blurred the lines between fiction and reality

05:23he wanted um this to be a way for the actors to really inhabit the rules and to feel that what

05:32they're portraying is real life and not um not a film not acting there's also a scene where your

05:38sultan gets in a fight and it's at school and he bumps into the camera in the middle of the fight

05:45did you keep that moment in the film to further sell the reality of the piece it was kept in

05:51intentionally because he wanted that to be a way for the viewer to feel like they're really in the room

06:00and this is all happening in front of their eyes this um kind of physicality of it there's another

06:07great scene where your sultan learns of his grandmother's death and he walks outside in one

06:12continuous shot for an impressive emotional breakdown how many takes did this first time actor need to pull

06:20off that scene uh they rehearse for about two two weeks uh but there were this was take four

06:31take four we have to talk about the climactic scene in which your sultan finally releases all

06:39the pain that he's been bottling up for his entire life his father then hugs him for the first time and

06:44refuses to let go how would you describe the moments leading up to that that big dramatic explosion uh

06:57he was inspired by a rembrandt painting where um the child comes to his father and falls onto his knees in

07:08front of him and this was kind of the idea behind um in a way playing off of that

07:22there are a lot of animals in the film obviously you can't direct animals so did you have to roll with

07:30those moments of improvisation at all did the animals change the way certain scenes played out at all

07:36yeah they rehearsed a lot with the animals really getting yes to town to be uh familiar with these

07:42animals and it wasn't uh really improvised those scenes were the product of um a lot of preparation

07:49also getting the animals comfortable with who and they tried a few different things you know there's

07:53a scene where the lamb licks yes on space and they they tried a few different approaches to get that

07:59to happen like putting some honey on his face and but just really kind of feeding the animals

08:03uh lastly i always try to close on a sentimental note uh so diaz this would apply in your case maybe to

08:11showing the film at a festival or any other kind of event but i would like to know what day on set

08:19best sums up the experience for you as hot i would love to hear uh what day you'll be thinking about

08:25decades from now when you remember this experience fondly

08:27uh the scene that you referred to earlier with um yes it's on coming out of the house and uh crying

08:41after his grandmother's death once they were able to get that take was as how it was really happy

08:48because at that moment he knew that they were about to create something truly special

09:01well i wish you both the best of luck this award season and thank you for joining the hollywood

09:05reporter presents thank you so much it's been a pleasure thank you

'Bauryna Salu' THR Presents Q&A With Director Askhat Kuchinchirekov & Producer Dias Feld | THR Video

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