Tilek Yrysbek

Tilek YRYSBEK (China) is a Kazakh director, screenwriter, and poet whose work explores migration, identity and the lived experiences of subaltern communities. Working primarily with documentary forms, he examines questions of belonging and displacement through intimate, character-driven narratives. His films include The World of Zhumagul, which received a Special Jury Prize at the Bastau International Film Festival and was later screened at the University of Toronto within the programme “Decolonial Documentation: Homeland, Survival and Belonging in Kazakh and Uyghur Filmmaking.” Alongside his filmmaking practice, Yrysbek is a published poet and a literary translator.

Filmography

(all short) The World of Zhumagul (2021), The Candidate (2023), Dina’s Dream (2024), Dina’s Children (2025), We Were Standing on the Shore (2026)