Rob Munday

Running our first-ever horror competition, Nightmare Shorts, we knew we’d need some help when it came to picking a winner. So, tapping into our alumni network, we assembled a jury featuring some of the most exciting names in genre filmmaking: Nikyatu Jusu, director of the Sundance-selected short Suicide by Sunlight and award-winning feature Nanny; Caleb Phillips, the filmmaker behind internet horror sensation Other Side of the Box, whose debut feature, Imposters, played at SXSW earlier this year; and Rob Savage, director of numerous S/W selections and recent box-office hit Other Mommy. Today, you can finally watch the short they unanimously chose as their winner.

Daler Murzagali’s Zar is a Kazakh horror film about an abusive music teacher who uses a mystical kobyz, a traditional folk instrument, to exert control over his students. Tapping into the very real fear of child abuse, Murzagali pushes this already disturbing premise into supernatural territory, creating a horror film built on mounting dread and unease rather than cheap jump scares.

“At the heart of the story is a mother who blindly trusts her daughter’s music teacher, hoping to raise her into a talented musician,” Murzagali explains. With the mother failing to recognise that her daughter is being abused by the very person she has entrusted with her care, Zar remains rooted in an all-too-real situation, despite its supernatural elements. “With this film, I wanted to remind parents to listen to their children and believe them,” the writer-director says, adding that he hopes the film will encourage parents to reflect on how their “own ambitions and expectations [can] overshadow their children’s safety and well-being”.

Zar is driven by an imposing physical performance from Asset Imangaliyev

Visually striking and achieved without relying on special effects, Zar demonstrates how atmosphere, assured production design and a commanding physical performance can make for deeply unsettling horror. Murzagali’s immersive approach places us in the room alongside his young protagonist as the abusive teacher exerts his control over her. We experience her fear alongside her, making the film’s depiction of her ordeal all the more devastating. As Nightmare Shorts juror Nikyatu Jusu explains:

“Zar immersed me in its protagonist’s experience of puberty and menstruation so completely. Through its framing, breath, color, performances, and an evolving score with a character arc of its own, I felt her discomfort in every fiber of my physical being.”

Selected from almost 100 submissions, Zar feels like the perfect choice for our inaugural Nightmare Shorts winner. Not only is it an impactful and memorable piece of genre filmmaking, but it also introduces us to a filmmaker we’re sure to hear more from in the years to come. With Murzagali currently developing a feature-length version of the short, hopefully we won’t have to wait long to return to this unsettling world and discover what this talented filmmaker does next.