“In 2023, with the support of the ministry, the production of 14 feature films and 2 documentaries that began in 2022 was completed. Production of 19 new film projects has been launched. This year, the production of 18 new film projects selected at the end of 2023 is being completed,” Minister of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan Aida Balayeva recently noted in her video message.

The ministry has also worked on the issue of amending the rules for selecting film projects. In particular, this concerns the financing and production of film projects claiming the status of a national film. This measure was taken to ensure transparency and simplify the procedure for selecting film projects.

“According to the new rules, the National Film Support Center will accept scripts, the best of which will be selected by an expert council. Among the priority topics are topics that meet national interests and ideology. A competition of a new format will be announced in the near future,” the minister emphasized.

The competitive selection includes two stages. At the first stage, the Expert Council will consider only scripts and script plans.
At the second stage, the authors of the selected scripts will have to provide a full package of documents necessary for the implementation of film projects. For transparency, the competition will be held via online broadcast. The conclusions on each project issued by the Expert Council will be sent by the Film Center to the Interdepartmental Commission for consideration.

The Ministry will make the final decision on financing film projects only based on the results of the competitive selection.

Kurmanbek Zhumagali, Chairman of the Board of the State National Cinema Support Center, also shared the changes: “candidates must send the script to the Center electronically no later than 5 working days after the publication of the competition announcement. According to today's calculations, applicants were given 3 months to write the script for full preparation. We hope that representatives of the domestic film industry will create something grandiose during this time that corresponds to the national ideology!”, - K. Zhumagali.

As a reminder, the National Cinema Support Center previously announced priority topics for 2024 on its official website.