Born on 19 of July 1984 in Alga Province in Kazakhstan, Emir Baigazin studied at the Kazakh National Academy of Arts in Almaty, majoring in film direction and cinema. In September 2007, he studied at the Asian Film Academy (AFA) at the Busan International Film Festival. In February 2008, he participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival. Emir is a member of the Asian Pacific Screen Awards (APSA).
His debut feature Harmony Lessons (written, directed, and edited by Baigazin) celebrated its premiere in the Berlinale Competition 2013, where it won a Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution and the Morgenpost Readers’ Award. Among over 20 other recognitions worldwide, Emir Baigazin was awarded at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Sao Paolo Film Festival, and the Seattle Film Festival as well as nominated for Best Directing Achievement at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Brisbane, Australia. Emir Baigazin was a member of the Juri “Pardi di domani” at the Locarno Film Festival 2013 as well as a part of the International Competition Jury at the Sao Paolo Film Festival (Brazil) 2014. In June 2015, he was a member of the Jury of the Art Film Fest in Trencin, Slovakia.
Emir’s next full-length feature, The Wounded Angel (written, directed, and edited by Baigazin) was supported by the Berlinale Residency 2013 and won the International Arte Prize during the Berlinale Co-Production Market 2014. In August 2014 the project was awarded with the Work-in-Progress Prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Wounded Angel premiered in the Panorama Special official program at the Berlin international film festival in February 2016. The same year, The Wounded Angel received the Special Jury Prize at the Jeonju festival, the prize for Best Director at the Kosice Art Film Fest, the main award at Fünf Seen Filmestival, Germany, and the grand Prix of the TransformNation Film Awards at the International Youth Film Forum in Sochi.
Emir was a director/screenwriter, and also a producer of the melodrama Would You Like to Stargaze?, which received a Hubert Bals Fund grant for script development in December 2015 and premiered at the Anomimul IFF in Romania in 2018. At Anonimul, Emir was awarded a prize for his contribution to the beauty of the world’s cinema.
Director/screenwriter Baigazin also produced The River. The project received funding from the Ministry of Culture of Kazakhstan and Kazakhfilm studio, an MPA APSA grant for development, a grant from Norway’s Sorfond, and the main prize of the Pitch and Meet at the Warsaw International Film Festival. The film is closing the so-called ‘Aslan trilogy’, which was initiated with Harmony Lessons and Wounded Angel.
Emir Baigazin finished shooting the film «Life» in 2022. He is a director, director of photography, editor, and screenwriter of the film. The world premiere took place at the Toronto Film Festival (Canada), and the Asian premiere was in Tokyo (Japan). Filming lasted for 3 years in Almaty, South Kazakhstan region, Aktau and Pattaya (Thailand). The film runs for almost 3 hours.
-The idea and story for this film came to me when I was preparing to shoot my first film exactly 10 years ago. Despite the difficulties that the hero gets into, I always found this story filled with the love of life.-
- Fun and offended|short|2006
- Steppe|short|2007
- Virgins|short|2007
- Weightlifter|short|2008
- Harmony Lessons|full-length|2013
- Wounded Angel|full-length|2016
- Would you like to stargaze?|full-length|2018
- River|full-length|2018
- Life|full-length|2022