Zholdaskali's 'Sicko' Premieres at Transilvania Film Fest
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- "Sicko" — Aitore Zholdaskali's solo debut — premieres at the Transilvania International Film Festival (June 12–21) after grossing more than $2 million in Kazakhstan last fall, despite a 21+ rating that restricted screenings to between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
- The film follows a cash-strapped couple who, with a crooked lab assistant, fake a terminal illness and launch a viral crowdfunder — only to attract the attention of Almaty's criminal underworld; Zholdaskali says every plot point was drawn from actual news stories and the movie is "not as violent as life is."
- Starring Ayan Utepbergen and Dilnaz Kurmangali, the film had its international premiere in the Bright Future Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, is sold worldwide by Loco Films, and has drawn comparisons to Korean genre cinema and a Kazakh "Parasite."
- Zholdaskali previously directed "Sheker" — about a desperate college student turned drug runner — which won a Busan prize, screened at Canneseries 2022, and drew roughly 200 million viewers across the CIS region, establishing him as a Central Asian streaming-era breakout.
- He recently directed the action-fantasy "Hell Grind" entirely on AI startup Higgsfield's platform for $500,000 in just two weeks, citing it as proof that new tools are "democratizing" filmmaking access for Kazakh creators.
- Zholdaskali is grouped with Berlinale prizewinner Askar Uzabayev ("Happiness"), Askhat Kuchinchirekov ("Adoption"), and Aisultan Seitov ("Hunger") as part of a generation of Kazakh filmmakers stirring echoes of the country's 1980s post-Soviet New Wave.
Why it matters: A Kazakh debut grossing $2M+ domestically under a 21+ rating and screening at Rotterdam gives the country's genre cinema new international visibility, while Zholdaskali's $500,000 AI-produced "Hell Grind" — completed in two weeks on Higgsfield's platform — exemplifies the lower-cost production model he credits with opening doors for Central Asian filmmakers.
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