Originally from Kazakhstan, Zhannat Alshanova is a writer/director drawn to stories of people in flux, caught between cultures, identities and shifting realities. Her short films have screened at Cannes (End of Season), Sundance (Paola Makes a Wish) and TIFF (History of Civilisation), which won Locarno’s Pardo di Domani Silver Leopard. Her debut feature, Becoming, premiered at Locarno before screening at Busan, Tallinn Black Nights and SXSW London. She is developing Etc., her first English-language feature with Film4, selected for TIFF Writers’ Studio 2024 and awarded a CHANEL Fellowship, alongside A Minor Issue (LIM) and China Doll. Zhannat is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, TIFF Filmmakers Lab and Locarno’s Directing Workshop.
PROJECT
A Minor Issue
On the eve of graduation from one of London’s most prestigious architecture schools, AISULU “LU” (27), a student from Kazakhstan, discovers a crack in the architectural model she is due to present the next morning. Her classmate Max dismisses it as a minor issue. As the damage worsens, the two spend the night breaking into workshops, rebuilding the model, and eventually rewriting the presentation itself. As every attempt to repair the project only pushes them further from its original meaning, the night becomes an unexpected confrontation with their ambitions, friendship and the compromises that shape creative lives. By dawn, Lu must decide whether to present the project she has spent months perfecting or finally face what it has become.
