Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Kazakh director known for satirical features such as Yellow Cat and The Owners, who co-wrote Higgsfield's 2026 AI-made feature Hell Grind with director Aitore Zholdaskali.
- Credits
- 1
- Avg AIPopDB score
- 83
- Views across credits
- 1.1M
- Active since
- 2026
Image: media-amazon.com
- Nature
- Human
- Department
- Writing
- Based in
- Kazakhstan
- Active since
- 2026
- 1 credit
Biography
Adilkhan Yerzhanov is a Kazakh director who graduated from the Kazakh National Academy of Arts. His early features The Constructors (2013) and The Owners (2014) set out a spare, satirical style built on non-professional performers, and Klassiki counts 14 features in 12 years. The Owners and The Gentle Indifference of the World (2018) both premiered at Cannes, and A Dark, Dark Man won him Best Director at the 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Yellow Cat, his ninth feature, premiered at the 77th Venice International Film Festival in 2020 and, according to Kazakhfilm, made the Oscar longlist for best foreign-language film. The Astana Times describes him as a member of the European Film Academy who sat on the Asia Pacific Screen Awards jury in 2017.
He co-wrote Hell Grind with its director, Aitore Zholdaskali. The 95-minute English-language fantasy was made on the AI platform of Higgsfield by a team of 15 directors, cinematographers and editors over about 14 days of video generation, and Higgsfield puts the cost under $500,000, most of it compute. A Higgsfield spokesperson said the screenplay, developed over several years, remained human-written. The film premiered at the Cannes film market in May 2026, outside the festival itself; Wikipedia cites an AV Club piece disputing its billing as a Cannes debut. JoBlo's reviewer called the dialogue awkward.