For the first time in history there is a Kazakh movie mentioned in the short-list for Oscar. Although the motion picture is actually a joint venture of Russian and Kazakh sides, the nomination was made on behalf of Kazakhstan, where the filming was done, and where nearly half money came from.

Nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards were announced Tuesday, January 22, with “Mongol” announced among five other nominees for Best foreign language film of the year. This is certainly a more serious success of the Kazakh cinematographe comparing to “Nomad” (2005), which was perceived by many as a multi-million dollar commercial video ad to promote the image of Kazakhstan, rather than to make a good film. Both movies were directed by Sergey Bodrov, a Kazakhstan-born Russian guru of cinematographe.