Bauryna Salu filmmaker Askhat Kuchinchirekov couldn’t understand why a familiar Kazakh experience had gone untold on the big screen, so he took the initiative himself. Now competing on behalf of Kazakhstan for a best international feature film nomination at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, Kuchinchirekov’s feature directorial debut chronicles a 12-year-old boy named Yersultan (Yersultan Yerman), who’s being raised by his grandmother (Bigaysha Salkyn) in accordance with the ancient Kazakh tradition known as Bauryna Salu. Yersultan helps his grandmother maintain their dilapidated cottage in a rural village, all while doing manual labor in and around their community so that he can provide for his quietly ailing guardian and still save enough money to eventually visit his estranged family that gave him up at birth. That day would come sooner than expected due to the abrupt death of his grandmother, and his subsequent reunion with his father, mother (Dinara Shymyrbay) and brother (Yerkin Berikuly) is far removed from the idealized version he’d imagined his entire life. Kuchinchirekov and his director of photography, Zhanrbek Yeleubek, were both …