Asian Movie Night x Qyzqaras: ‘Madina'(2023) + Q&A
Asian Movie Night, in collaboration with Qyzqaras film festival, is excited to screen the feature film ‘Madina’ (2023) by Aizhan Kassymbek with a Q&A with the director after.
Madina / Aizhan Kassymbek / Kazakhstan, Pakistan / 2023 / 77’
Single mother Madina teaches dance by day and works at a burlesque club by night. Fending off men’s advances, she raises a two-year-old daughter. Restrained imagery reflects her emotions.
The film screening is a part of AMN Autumn edition Tremors Beneath the Surface: Women’s Voices from Central Asia, curated by Malika Mukhamejan, a filmmaker and co-founder of the Qyzqaras Film Festival.
This program brings together features, shorts, and experimental works from Central Asia and its diasporas, assembling a layered portrait of women’s lives. The films are bound not by a single storyline but by the tremors that run beneath them: silence carried across generations, memory interrupting the present, endurance woven into the textures of the everyday.
Find the full programme with more screenings and more films at various locations around the Netherlands here.
Aizhan Kassymbek graduated from the Asian Film Academy program at 2019. Her debut short film “SU” won the Grand Prix at Hanoi’s Festival. “AUA,” another notable work, screened at global festivals. Her debut feature “FIRE” premiered at Busan International Film Festival at 2021, gaining recognition at 30+ festivals, earning 16 awards. Aizhan empowers women in film, evident in her all-woman crew debut. She aims to bolster Kazakhstani female filmmakers. Her second film “Madina,” a co-production with India and Pakistan, was premiered in Tokyo International Film Festival at 2023.
Program:
Doors Open: 19:00
Film Starts: 19:30
Malika Mukhamejan is a curator and filmmaker whose work elevates diverse voices in Central Asian cinema, exploring women’s representation, and fostering community through film. She is the founder of Qyzqaras, an Almaty-based film festival dedicated to female filmmaking, which has just celebrated its most recent edition: Qyzqaras Film Festival 2025.
QYZQARAS is an independent platform and annual film festival based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, dedicated to amplifying women’s voices in cinema, with a particular focus on Central Asia. Founded in 2023, QYZQARAS aims to challenge dominant narratives, support emerging filmmakers, and provide space for underrepresented perspectives through film screenings, discussions, and educational initiatives. Its motto — “women’s perspectives through the lens of cinema” — reflects its commitment to feminist curatorial practices and the creation of a transnational community of artists, thinkers, and audiences.
Asian Movie Night (AMN) is a diasporic film platform in the Netherlands. Established as a direct response to the systematic lack of Asian representation in the Dutch cultural scene, AMN brings in radically different narratives and aesthetics to a broad audience through collaboration with various cultural venues. With an interdisciplinary approach that integrates film, visual art, design, and conversations, AMN aims to challenge the notion of ‘Asianness’ by transcending nation-state borders and resisting fixed identities.
