Berlin Panorama Audience Winner ‘Happiness’ Underscores Opportunities, Challenges for Kazakh Filmmaking

variety.com:

Anna Marie de la Fuente Kazakh filmmaker Askar Uzabayev’s domestic violence drama “Happiness” snagged the Audience Award in the Berlin Film Festival’s prestigious Panorama sidebar, a good sign of its potential appeal in cinemas and festivals worldwide.

Whether it will secure distribution in its native Kazakhstan is another matter, however.Based on actual events, “Happiness” centers on a lovely influencer who promotes a product line called Happiness, which she pitches as a surefire path to happiness, beauty and success.But her home life reflects the opposite where her abusive husband grows ever more violent.

Even her newlywed daughter suffers the same fate in a country where inadequate laws protect the rights and safety of women. The film is produced by Bayan Maxatkyzy, a renowned TV anchor, producer, actress and blogger in Kazakhstan, with millions of followers on social media.

But her celebrity offered no protection from her then husband of 22 years who beat and stabbed her within an inch of her life some five years ago.Despite the availability of state funding from a film law that passed in 2019, Maxatkyzy and her co-producer Anna Katchko of Tandem Production, a Berlinale Silver Bear winner for “Harmony Lessons,” resorted to crowdfunding to finance the film.“I understand that this is not a commercial movie, so neither the government nor businesses would give money for its production, especially for this kind of topic that is uncomfortable for men,” noted Maxatkyzy.“The $20,000 that we gathered in crowdfunding gave us a strong start.