SICKO Official Trailer: Kazakh Thriller Heads to IFFR With a Sales Agent
Variety has reported that Loco Films has come on board as the sales agent for Aitore Zholdaskali’s feature debut, a hard-boiled thriller titled Sicko. With that announcement comes the official trailer, which you will find below.
Azamat and Tansholpan are completely broke. When their debts are violently called in, the ambitious couple hatch a plan to make quick money. With the help of a crooked lab assistant, the couple fake a terminal illness, start a crowdfunder for “life-saving” treatment and swiftly go viral. Their rapid ascent to fame and fortune at first seems like a dream come true, but soon their celebrity attracts attention from Almaty’s criminal underworld, and their scheme spins dangerously out of control.
In recent years, our attention has been drawn to genre cinema from the Central Asian region; for us, seemingly carried on the back of directors like Adilkhan Yerzhanov (Steppenwolf, Kazakh Scary Tales). Other films from countries in the region, from thrillers to horror, have found their way onto the international genre film circuit, as this generation of filmmakers draws from international genre influences and attempts their own takes, with Central Asian social twists.
Loco Films’ Laurent Danielou comments, “I believe ‘Sicko’ announces Aitore Zholdaskali as one of Kazakhstan’s boldest new voices in this very confident solo debut. In pure Korean-style genre thrills, the film fuses gory violence, twists and black humor. Behind its stylish brutality lies a razor-edged social commentary on gender and late-stage capitalism, rooted specifically in today’s Kazakhstan. The film was a huge success in Kazakh cinemas.”
Sicko will have its international premiere in the Bright Future Competition section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam on February 1st.
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