With Zar, Daler Murzagali’s winner of our inaugural Nightmare Shorts competition, now available to watch on Short of the Week, we thought it was only right to share a little more about the film and the filmmaker behind it. With that in mind, we asked Murzagali five quick questions about his career so far, the rise of horror in Kazakh cinema, why he chose to use genre filmmaking to tackle the subject of abuse, and more:

Could you tell us a little about your journey into filmmaking? What first made you want to become a filmmaker and how did you get to this point in your career?

As a child, I went to the movies every week. The unforgettable experiences I had watching films inspired me to become a director and one day make my own films.

I was drawn to horror in particular because it can tackle complex subject matter and ask difficult questions that other genres don’t always address. I am also fascinated by horror’s atmosphere: its slow-building dread, tension and unease. I simply love this kind of cinema.

Zar is only the third film from Kazakhstan we’ve featured on Short of the Week. For international audiences who may be less familiar with Kazakh cinema, how does the film fit into the filmmaking culture you’ve grown up around? Were there particular aspects of life or culture in Kazakhstan that you wanted to bring to the screen?

Kazakhstan, like many other countries, is experiencing its own wave of horror cinema. These films often explore uncomfortable questions about national identity in the modern world. Like other Asian horror films, Kazakh genre cinema has a distinctive, almost exotic quality. With Zar, I wanted to convey this unique quality through both the film’s visual language and the issues it explores.

Zar is an unsettling horror film, but beneath its mounting tension are themes of puberty, bodily autonomy and control. What drew you to these subjects and why did horror feel like the right genre through which to explore them?

We live in an age of anxiety and constant fear. More people are turning to psychotherapy, while chronic stress has become part of everyday life. Our fears and anxieties affect us not only mentally but physically, too.

This raises an interesting question: if we talk about bodily autonomy, could anxiety itself be understood as a kind of invasion of the body? It seems to take us over from within, controlling our sensations and reactions. Much like the supernatural force in the film, fear can torment us from a distance, yet its effects are intensely physical, making us feel as though our own bodies no longer belong to us.

The film’s tension is partly driven by some excellent performances, with the interactions between the cast feeling both intimate and increasingly disturbing. How did you approach working with the actors to achieve this balance, particularly when dealing with such sensitive subject matter?

I was completely honest with the actors and spoke openly about what we were trying to achieve. With this film, we couldn’t hide its difficult subject matter behind metaphors or allusions. We rehearsed extensively, discussed different approaches and worked together to find the right tone

At times, we felt embarrassed or uncomfortable, but we understood that we were making an important film, and that helped us move forward.

Music plays a particularly important role in Zar, shaping both the atmosphere and the rhythm of the story. How did you develop the film’s musical language and how did you work with the score to build unease alongside the visuals?

The kobyz, a traditional Kazakh folk instrument, produces a sound reminiscent of human weeping. Its naturally dissonant tone can create an immediate sense of anxiety and unease. We simply needed to find the right rhythm to intensify this feeling and weave it organically into the film’s soundtrack.