With over a dozen films under his belt, Adilkhan Yerzhanov is a major figure in Kazakh cinema. Following his breakout feature The Owners (2014), which competed in SGIFF, he went on to make acclaimed films like The Plague at the Karatas Village (2016), The Gentle Indifference of the World (2018) and A Dark, Dark Man (2019). Assault, the opening film for this year’s SGIFF, and Goliath both premiered at Rotterdam and Venice respectively.

Olga Khlasheva has been producing and distributing Kazakh cinema since the 1990s. She is noted for her decade-long collaboration with writer-director Adilkhan Yerzhanov. The duo’s films, beginning with Realtors in 2011, and most recently Assault and Goliath, have consistently presented the benchmark of Kazakh productions. She has served as a juror in many international film festivals including Warsaw and Tallinn Black Nights, and is presently head of international relations at Kazakhfilm Studios.