Yellow Cat

Original title: Sary mysyq
Genre: Drama / Comedy
Director: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Country: Kazakhstan, France
Year of production: 2020
Czas: 88 min

Awards and nominations:
2022 Kazakh submission for the Academy Award
2022 Venice Film Festival: nominated for Best Film

Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s film is a grotesque and absurd story of twentysomething Kermek (played by Azamat Nigmanov). The man, who is a huge fan of Alain Delon’s role in “Le Samouraï”, goes out of prison and comes back to his hometown somewhere on a Kazakh steppe. He wants to start a new honest life. He dreams about gathering enough money to build a cinema, but a local mafia boss (Yerken Gubashev) demands that Kermek work for him. The man rejects his pre-determined fate, instead setting off on a journey across local sideways with a young crazy prostitute Eva (Kamila Nugmanova) as his companion.
“Yellow Cat” resembles Emir Kusturica’s “Arizona Dream” and Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom”. Yerzhanov tells about contemporary Kazakhstan and its corrupted services, lack of perspectives, and poverty from the angle of two innocent lovers, weirdos and outsiders who want to be happy regardless of the circumstances. The Central Asian country looks like a land from an irreverent slapstick fairy tale where instead of magic creatures like fairies and dragons there are Alain Delon, Robert de Niro or Gene Kelly. The film astounds with wonderful cinematography depicting Kazakh nature and very precise multi-layered frame compositions. “Yellow Cat” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in a prestigious Orrizonti section.
 
Author: Mateusz Żebrowski
 
* * *
 
Adilkhan Yerzhanov – born in 1982 in Dzhezkazgan in the Soviet Union (now in Kazakhstan and called Jezkazgan). He’s made over a dozen features that were screened at festivals in Cannes (Un Certain Regard section), Venice (Orrizonti section), and San Sebastian among others. He also writes and edits his films.