NUR-SULTAN – The film “Shturm” (Assault) by Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov won the grand jury award for Best Narrative Feature at the 38th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) held May 5-13, reported the Kazakhfilm press service.
It is 12th movie directed by Yerzhanov. Photo credit: Facebook account of Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF)
The film tells the story of a school located in a fictional remote village in Kazakhstan called Karatas, which is seized by a group of armed men. Although the schoolchildren are taken hostage, the masked criminals make no demands. Seeing that the army will take two days to arrive due to a snowstorm, math teacher Tazshi forms his own rescue team: his ex-wife, a gym teacher, a cowardly school principal, an alcoholic war veteran, a town police officer, and local mobsters.
Earlier in April, the film received the Grand Prix and Critics’ Prize at the second Reims International Thriller Film Festival. It also entered the main program of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which was held from Jan. 26 and lasted through Feb. 6 this year.
The movie was produced by Kazakhstan’s Short Brothers and Kazakhfilm studio as well as the Kazakh Nomad Stunts team and with the support of Russia’s film companies LOOK FILM and FOREST FILM.
Established in 1983, LAAPFF is the largest film festival in Southern California. The festival, which showcases films by and about Asian and Pacific Islanders around the world, was recently named one of the 25 coolest film festivals in the world in 2021 by MovieMaker Magazine.
