ASTANA – Comic Con Astana, Central Asia’s largest pop culture festival, concluded on July 13 with a grand cosplay competition final. A cosplayer from Astana, known by the nickname Grafomanka, won the grand prix of the competition and the title of the champion of the Comic Con Astana 2025 for her portrayal of Naga Siren from the Dota 2 game.
Total prize pool for this year’s Comic Con Astana was 15 million tenge (~US$28,000). Photo credit: Comic Con Astana press service.
The winner also received a cash prize of 3.8 million tenge (US$7,300).
Costume play, or cosplay, was at the forefront of the event, with people showing up in their most creative outfits. Around 200 cosplayers from 10 countries participated in the competition, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, Thailand, the United States, and Uzbekistan.
Inspired by characters from comic books, anime, manga, films and video games, cosplayers went the extra mile this year to dress up as their favorite characters and to win prizes.
First place and a prize of 1.9 million tenge (US$3,650) went to Brykus from St. Petersburg, Russia, for portraying Baroness Dreka from the World of Warcraft game.
Second place and 1.3 million tenge (US$2,500) was awarded to Gol.D.Moon from Astana as Legion Commander from Dota 2. Third place and one million tenge (US$1,900) went to VladizArt from Karagandy, Kazakhstan, for the role of Astrid Hofferson from the “How to Train Your Dragon” cartoon.
On the stage, cosplayers not only take on their physical form but also embody their characteristics, earning enthusiastic applause from the watching crowd.
Comic Con Astana debuted in 2019. Over the years, the interest in pop culture continued to grow in the region, with this year’s edition attracting a record-high 75,000 people.
Comic Con headliner Andy Serkis
Aside from cosplays, movie stars and industry insiders held Q&A and autograph sessions. This year’s featured guests included Hollywood star Esai Morales and actor Scott Adkins.
Andy Serkis. Photo credit: Comic Con Astana press service.
On the fourth day of the event, famous British actor and director Andy Serkis, a pioneer in motion capture technology, met with fans in a Q&A session.
Serkis has risen to global prominence for his roles as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Caesar in “Planet of the Apes,” supreme leader Snoke in “Star Wars,” and Alfred in “Batman.”
Sharing his first impressions, Serkis said it was a great honor and a true pleasure to visit Kazakhstan. “I feel like a nomad myself, so I feel at home here,” he said.
Whether portraying humans or animals, heroes or villains, aliens or monsters, the emotional core of his character was always at the heart of his performance.
“You have to think about the fact that it’s about character first. So the physicality is like learning choreography for a dance: you learn the choreography, but really it’s about how you interpret the choreography, emotionally and psychologically. So learning the physical impersonation of how a chimpanzee moves is only one aspect of it, but it’s more about who is this particular chimpanzee or gorilla is, in the case of King Kong,” Serkis said.
According to him, the introduction of artificial intelligence into filmmaking could usher in a new chapter in cinema, much like the arrival of performance capture once did.
“In terms of filmmaking, for instance, there were actors who were scared of performance capture, that somehow actors were being replaced. But for me, I saw it as a whole journey for the actor to unlimited characters. So it really is about us utilizing this new, amazing technology,” said Serkis.
No matter how advanced digital cinema gets, the ability to tell a story through a good script should always remain at the heart of any production.
“What I’ve seen so far of this country is that you’re incredibly empathetic to every single individual ethnicity and culture, and respectful of that. Storytelling is all about empathy, and that’s why I think that this country has got the potential to tell and share really interesting, varied stories,” Serkis said.
