Qas (2022)

Kazakhstan's film industry has, over the past decade or so, been producing work that deserves far more international attention than it typically receives. Qas, released in 2022 and produced by QARA Studios, is a case in point: a Kazakh-language period drama set against one of the most catastrophic episodes in the country's modern history, the Soviet-era famine of the 1930s, known in Kazakhstan as the Asharshylyk, which is estimated to have killed roughly a third of the entire Kazakh population. That historical backdrop gives the film a weight that precedes its first frame, and director Aisultan Seitov uses it not as mere setting but as the very air his characters breathe. The film runs at 113 minutes and carries the tagline "Who is your enemy?", which, as you watch, turns out to be a more layered question than it first appears.

Seitov, working from his own directorial vision for QARA Studios, makes a striking choice in approaching this material as something that sits between period drama and psychological horror. It is the kind of formal ambition you occasionally find in non-English-language cinema from Central Asia and beyond, films that use landscape and silence as active dramatic tools rather than decoration. For other recent examples from world cinema in this vein, the blog has covered Megdan: Between Water and Fire and Tiger Stripes, both films that similarly push genre in directions that feel earned rather than gimmicky. At the centre of Qas is Yerkebulan Daiyrov as Isatai, a gravedigger, which is already a profession that places a character at the threshold between the living and the dead. Alongside him, Ondassyn Bessikbassov, Isbek Abilmazhinov, and Tolganay Talgat form the principal ensemble, with Russian actor Aleksandr Pal bringing a particular presence to the film in a role that, once the story gets moving, becomes its most unsettling element. Daiyrov carries the emotional burden of the film with a physicality that feels worn and real rather than performed.

The premise is spare in the way that good dramatic writing often is: a gravedigger and his younger brother travel toward the town of Sarkand, a place that promises something better, and on the road they encounter a mysterious old hermit whose presence grows increasingly sinister as the journey continues. It is a road film, a survival story, and something else besides, polished but unremarkable in its surface simplicity until Seitov starts doing something quite particular with the vast Kazakh steppe, those open plains that should feel freeing but, in his hands, somehow do the opposite. The film has drawn comparisons to other dramas that use landscape as a kind of psychological pressure, and anyone with an interest in how cinema handles history through a personal story rather than a panoramic one will find plenty to engage with here. Those who enjoy the kind of thoughtful, grounded drama found in films like Mustang or the measured storytelling of Yi Yi will recognise the mode, even if the register here is considerably darker.

A-Z World Movie Tour Kazakhstan Right from the fumirst intro scenes I was invested. I love movies with long shots of the wilderness and a lone rider. The bleakness of the area around the carriage rider and the accompanying intro score was fantastic. Set during the famine of the 1930s in Kazakhstan, even the colour scheme was starved. It was greys and beige and that's it and then by night it's only the orange glow of the campfire and the abyssal darkness all around. The story is about a gravedigger and his younger brother he's caring for and their journey to the apparent haven of Sarkand. On the journey they encounter a mysterious old hermit, with an aura of darkness surrounding him. This is where the film changes from a period drama into a psychological horror. The director is an absolute master at somehow making these huge expanses of plains feel claustrophobic. At every turn... the sinister old man is there. Menacing. Stalking. At times I was asking myself is he even there at all or is this hunger delirium? The contrast of the backdrop once they arrive in Sarkand, and the apparent futility of their efforts is an absolute gut punch. Brilliant movie. Will be watching more by this director if I can.

I don't say "will be watching more by this director" lightly, and I mean it here. There's a discipline to how Seitov builds dread from almost nothing, no score stings, no cheap cuts, just geography and an old man who keeps appearing where he shouldn't. Films set during famine and colonial violence can sometimes feel like they're asking you to endure rather than to watch, but this one earns every uncomfortable minute. It stays with you in the way that only a certain kind of cinema does, quietly and without asking permission. If you've been sleeping on Kazakh cinema, consider this your wake-up call.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 2022  | Watched: 2025-07-04

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Qas (2022) on YouTube

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