ÜREI Interview: Yerkezhan Baizhan | Fantastic Fest 2026
Ürei Filmmaker Yerkezhan Baizhan on Family, Aging and Turning the Familiar Into Horror
At Fantastic Fest 2026, Horror Movies Uncut sat down with Kazakh filmmaker Yerkezhan Baizhan to discuss Ürei, a deeply personal horror film that finds terror not simply in the supernatural, but in family, aging, memory and the uncertainty that can emerge when the people closest to us begin to change.
For Baizhan, that discomfort was essential. Rather than building Ürei around an external monster, the filmmaker takes ordinary domestic experiences and gradually makes them frightening.
“I write only those things I understand,” Baizhan told Horror Movies Uncut, explaining that the film was shaped in part by her own experiences, emotions and relationship with family.
Finding Horror Inside the Family
Central to Ürei is Amina, an elderly grandmother whose presence becomes increasingly unsettling for Camilla. Yet Baizhan was careful not to reduce Amina to the familiar horror archetype of the frightening old woman.
“It was actually incredibly important for me,” Baizhan said. “When I develop my characters, I don’t want to make them black or white.”
Instead, fear exists alongside sadness, vulnerability and affection. That complexity is fundamental to the film’s view of family: the people closest to us can be sources of comfort while simultaneously becoming people we struggle to understand.
“We’re not safe in this world, even when we are with our closest people, because we don’t know what to expect from them,” she explained, particularly as loved ones age.
That uncertainty allows Ürei to explore something considerably more grounded than ghosts or monsters: the reversal that occurs when children and grandchildren gradually become responsible for caring for the people who once cared for them.
A Kazakh Perspective on Caring for Elders
Baizhan, who is from Kazakhstan, said the responsibility families have toward older relatives is deeply embedded in her culture.
“We’re very, very close to our relatives and parents,” she said. “They actually raise us — their grandchildren.”
At just 23, Baizhan also recognizes the other side of that relationship. To her parents, she joked, she can still feel like “a kindergarten girl.”
That tension between generations helped shape Ürei. Baizhan wanted the film to acknowledge how difficult it can be for younger people to feel heard while also recognizing how difficult aging can make it for older generations to feel understood.
During our conversation, Baizhan also discussed a cultural distinction she has noticed between Kazakhstan and the United States. While acknowledging that American families care for elderly relatives, she pointed to the larger role retirement communities and nursing facilities can play in Western society.
In her experience, placing an elderly relative into such a facility can carry a very different cultural meaning in Kazakhstan.
“Our family should be the one doing it,” she said. “It’s our responsibility. We have to deal with it. We have to live with it. We have to accept it.”
That perspective gives the caregiving at the center of Ürei another layer. Caring for an aging relative isn’t simply an obligation imposed by circumstance; it is tied to family identity, tradition and responsibility.
The Village, the City and the Things We Refuse to Leave Behind
The film’s rural setting also becomes an extension of those ideas.
Ürei contrasts village life with glimpses of a more modern world, emphasizing the divide between generations that have remained attached to their homes and possessions and younger family members who may see those same things very differently.
Baizhan drew directly from her own grandmother.
Her family has suggested replacing old appliances or renovating her grandparents’ home, only to encounter resistance.
“Grandma, you really need a new stove,” Baizhan recalled telling her.
Her grandmother’s response was simple: “That is my stove.”
Those objects aren’t merely outdated possessions. They’re repositories for decades of lived experience.
“They’re so connected to their memories,” Baizhan said.
Sometimes, she added, those memories become more valuable than whatever a newer, more convenient replacement could provide.
That connection between physical space and memory makes the village setting more than atmospheric scenery. It represents a world that Amina’s generation is reluctant to surrender, even as the people around them continue moving forward.
Making the Ordinary Horrific
Baizhan doesn’t soften Ürei when the film becomes disturbing. Some sequences move beyond conventional scares into imagery deliberately designed to make the audience recoil.
That intensity was intentional.
“I took a very serious topic for my film, so I didn’t want to be too smooth,” she explained. “I wanted it to be raw. Rough.”
Rather than calculate precisely how viewers should react, Baizhan said her priority was honesty.
“I wasn’t expecting, ‘Now my audience should react like this or like this.’ I was just being honest.”
And that ultimately defines her approach to horror.
“We’re all scared of ghosts and some mythical things,” Baizhan said. “But when ordinary things are going the wrong way…”
That’s where Ürei finds its monster.
The film takes recognizable experiences — family gatherings, aging relatives, familiar homes and the responsibility of caring for someone you love — and subtly destabilizes them. The terror works precisely because the underlying situations don’t belong exclusively to horror movies.
They’re part of everyday life.
“Text Your Grandma”
For all its disturbing imagery, Baizhan hopes audiences leave Ürei thinking less about its scares than the people in their own lives.
“I think they will start appreciating those people,” she said. “It’s such a joy to have them.”
Communication, particularly between generations, is at the heart of what she hopes audiences take away from the film. Trauma left unspoken can create distance even among people who love one another.
“We have to make some actions to understand our close people,” Baizhan said, referring to both children and elders. “When you don’t talk about your trauma with your loved ones, I think it’s really hard to live.”
Her final message was considerably simpler:
“Text Your Grandma”
It’s an unexpectedly warm sentiment to emerge from a film willing to make family life so uncomfortable. But that contradiction is exactly where Ürei finds much of its power: love, obligation, fear, memory and mortality occupying the same home.
Horror Movies Uncut spoke with Yerkezhan Baizhan during Fantastic Fest 2026. Stay tuned to HMU for more interviews, reviews and coverage from the festival.
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