Still: Becoming - Zhannat Alshanova

In Kazakh director Zhannat Alshanova’s dramatic debut feature Becoming, the open water that the team of teenage swimmers dive into may be crystal clear, but the coaching techniques used to achieve competitive success are somewhat more murky.

Seventeen-year-old Mila feels trapped between an unreliable mother (whose priorities seem to rest with whoever is the latest man in her life) and her needy younger sister Lina. So when she meets Vlad, who trains a team of competitive swimmers her own age, Mila’s head is turned. Vlad seems like a maverick, laid back and attractively aloof. What’s more, the training techniques in the club he runs seem right-on and holistic, such as the mental “reformatting” of unpleasant memories to create a better head space for competition. 

Nevertheless, when the girls hold an impromptu pool party where a joint is passed around, one of them ends up face down in the water - supposedly because she had a weak heart. But are the tablets that the girls are routinely asked to take really designed to help them “focus”? What’s more, it seems that Vlad and his coach Ira may also be accepting inducements to guarantee places for girls on the team. Little by little, Mila begins to understand the set-up, but how far is she prepared to go in securing the new life she has built for herself?

Dutch co-producer Denis Vaslin of Volya Films has been with the project since its inception, opting for a co-producer credit while Jean-Laurent Csinidis (Films de Force Majeure) majority-produced out of Marseille. Becoming received received HBF+Europe, NFF+HBF and HBF Development support. 

“The energy that Jean-Laurent put in the film is quite remarkable,” says the Volya MD. “And the risk-taking also on the financial level was also big,” he adds of Csinidis’ pulling power in raising the budget on a debut film from the former Soviet state. “Films shot in Kazakhstan are getting more and more expensive, so budgets are going up.” 

That said, while Kazakhstan is a country whose previous track record hasn’t been so strong in its support of home-grown talent, Becoming bucks that trend, Vaslin points out. The Kazakh film authorities recognised the viability of investing in a modern story, with 21st Century protagonists trying to overcome 21st Century dilemmas. What’s more, those same authorities also supported a film that is, at times, critical of the new republic.

“I remember in the 1990s, some Kazakh directors like Darezhan Omirbayev were always criticised for not showing a good side of Kazakhstan, because it was a new country which was creating its founding myth and all that, and it was important to have a positive image of the country,” says Vaslin. “But now it's a country which is much more stable, and can start to address some themes which are not always the most pleasant, and at the same time understand it's not going to harm the common economy. I think that's a great evolution.”

The sound design on Becoming was provided by the near-legendary Netherlands-based Ranko Pauković, who worked on Johan Grimonprez’s Oscar-nominated Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024). “I met Zhannat and we had lunch and I could see she was really transformed by the process,” Vaslin says of the director’s collaboration with Pauković.

The Dutch producer also recognises an innate “between-cultures” sensitivity in the Kazakh director.

“She's a world citizen, and I always believed she could carry the film and tell something new about her country of origin.”

Volya Films has a raft of other films in production and development, including Siyou Tan’s Amoeba, which received also NFF+HBF backing and will world premiere at TIFF. In an oppressive city-state, a tomboy student convinces three classmates to rise up by starting a triad, reads the log-line.

In Sander Burger’s Youri, based on a true story, when journalist Jan Brokken interviews Youri Egorov, the world famous concert pianist and gay refugee from the USSR, an unexpected, close friendship arises between the two very different men.

Producer Vaslin is also busy on new feature documentaries by Ineke Smits and In-soo Radstake. Smits’ film will feature the late Chris Garrett, an Isle of Man bomb disposal expert who was recently killed in Ukraine, while Radstake’s documentary details his attempts to reclaim his Korean identity after being adopted as a child.

Furthermore, Volya is producing Birthmarks, an adaptation by the late Rudolf van den Berg of the novel by Arnon Grunberg. Sadly, the Dutch director passed away on July 12 2025. 

Becoming is directed by Zhannat Alshanova and minority co-produced by Volya Films (Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy, Totem). International sales are handled by Films de Force Majeure.