Oscar boost for Kazakh filmmakers

An Oscar nomination for a film made in Kazakhstan is allowing filmmakers there to showcase their talents - and recover from the embarrassment of the comedy film Borat, writes the BBC's Natalia Antelava.

The nomination is causing much excitement in Kazakhstan

"I can't wait to get to LA," beams Gulnara Sarsenova. She straightens the extravagant sunglasses that cover half of her face and turns her attention to the film set.

It is a dark room, where two actors are rehearsing a scene from her new project, a psychological thriller about murder and love in modern day Kazakhstan.

For her home country Kazakhstan, Gulnara's upcoming trip to Los Angeles is a huge deal.

She is general director of Eurasia Film Production - a company that produced Mongol, a Kazakh film that has been nominated for the Academy Awards in the category for best film in a foreign language.

The nomination has brought Kazakh cinema to a new level of success.

It is especially important because for much of last year Kazakh cinema was overshadowed by Borat - a film in which English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen portrayed the country as backward and full of prostitutes, racists and anti-Semites.

Many Kazakhs were unhappy with the film Borat

It was done in good humour, but it still upset many Kazakhs.

"Borat provided a lot of publicity for Kazakhstan. But it was black PR, it was negative," Gulnara says. "Mongol is the good PR," she smiles.

Mongol is all about the region's glorious nomadic past. It is an epic story of love and war, and a chronicle of the youth of Genghis Khan.

Financed by Kazakh investors and shot by Russian director Sergey Bodrov, Mongol, with its battle scenes in a backdrop of exotic landscapes, has the grandeur and ambition of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Parts of it were filmed in Kazakhstan, others across the border in China's northern provinces.

Ambitious plans

Like many here, Gulnara believes the film's success so far has already given the movie industry here a huge boost.

Russian director Sergey Bodrov directed Mongol

Her European colleagues seem to agree.

"What does the world know about Kazakhstan? Only that it has oil, caviar and Borat," says Roshanak Behesht Nedjad, managing director of German production company Flying Moon.

"It's a huge deal that a Kazakh film is in a race for the Oscars, especially a film produced by a woman in a society that is still largely dominated by men. It's a huge deal," she said.

Flying Moon is not the only European production house that works in Kazakhstan - dozens of films are being made here every year.

But the problem lies in distribution.

Filmmaking is not profitable in the country, where the population is only 15 million and where cinema houses prefer to show Hollywood blockbusters.

Still many are optimistic about the future and this optimism is fuelled by the country's growing wealth.

There is plenty of money here and the government, keen to promote its international image, seems willing to spend some of the oil profits on developing cinema.

The biggest, government-controlled production house, KazakhFilm, plans to spend millions of dollars next year on renovating their Soviet-era premises.

"We have very ambitious plans," says Anar Kashaganova, president of KazakhFilm.

"We hope to build not just new studios, but also cinema complexes across the country. If we want to promote our films, we need to make sure that in every village people are watching them."