Director and Screenwriter, 1958, Kazakhstan.
Acclaimed by Jean-Luc Godard as "one of the most astonishing filmmakers working today", Darezhan Omirbayev studied applied mathematics in Kazakhstan, later embracing cinema and moving to Russia in 1983, where he graduated from the prestigious Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), in Moscow. After a brief foray into film critic, he directed Kairat, his first feature-film, in 1991, earning the FIPRESCI Prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Years later, he would go on to receive further accolades at Cannes, winning the Un Certain Regard Award with Tueur à Gages, in 1998. Endowed with an outstanding sensibility to detail, Omirbayev is able to portray, in every social microcosm that composes his work, the monotony of everyday life in Kazakhstan and the little nothings that define human existence.
Darezhan Omirbayev will be in attendance and LEFFEST will pay tribute to his work by showing a complete retrospective of his feature films.