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Star trails wheeling around the North Star above a yurt and a campfire on the Kazakh steppe, from the JUZ40 opening film

JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY

Work · Opening film · Almaty Arena, 2026

An opening film written to hand over to the next act

It opened the show at Almaty Arena on 26 August 2026, in front of 6,000+ graduates, parents and teachers. ALPHA came on stage straight after the final shot.

3:05
the film that opened the show, in Kazakh
6,000+
graduates, parents and teachers at Almaty Arena
0
words or names on screen
ALPHA
the act the last shot hands the stage to

In short

Flavatars wrote and directed the film that opened JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY at Almaty Arena on 26 August 2026 and handed the room to the live act that followed. Gubsky Talent Hub commissioned it for the EdTech company JUZ40. It runs 3 minutes 5 seconds: hand-drawn 2D animation in a Ghibli style, in Kazakh. A grandfather tells his grandson about Temirqazyq, the North Star. The animation is generated; the voices are real performances and the score is original music by a composer.

The idea

Not a title sequence: an argument

JUZ40 is an EdTech centre in Kazakhstan. It has prepared grades 10 and 11 for the UNT, Kazakhstan's unified national test, since 2018: 180,000+ students over eight years, 287,000 followers on Instagram, an International e-Assessment Award in June 2026. On 26 August 2026 it staged JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY at Almaty Arena, in front of 6,000+ graduates, parents and teachers. Gubsky Talent Hub commissioned the opening film from Flavatars. The starting idea came from JUZ40; the script and the direction are Oleg Pylypenko's, including the notes he declined as director because they asked for what the technology would not deliver.

The brief set the walls. It had to hold in Kazakh, in an arena, and finish on the exact beat that hands the stage to the act coming on next. The finished film runs 3 minutes 5 seconds. The argument itself is old and it is not complicated. A star's light travels for thousands of years, so some of the stars overhead are already gone and their light still shows the way. The words, the music and the wisdom of the great arrive the same way. Leave goodness and a useful trace behind you, and you become a star too.

A record of results tells a market that a company is good at its job. It does not say why the job matters. For 3 minutes JUZ40 answered the second question instead: an old man, his grandson, and Temirqazyq, the North Star, which barely moves and by which the ancestors found their way. The style was locked to hand-drawn 2D in a Ghibli register, chosen by the client from three tests, with photorealism forbidden. A hard client rule ran through everything: no text and no names on screen, at any point. That takes away the title card, the caption and the slogan.

The image is generated. The performances are not. Stills and character identity were built in Midjourney and Magnific, motion in Seedance 2.5. The grandfather and the boy are recorded human voices. The score is original music written by a composer. Only the sound design was generated: ambience, SFX and the accents, made by Oleg Pylypenko in Seed-Audio. The film ends on distant silhouettes of "elder brothers" walking the steppe on a path of light, written as a bridge into a live entrance. ALPHA came on stage right after it.

The opening film

Three minutes, one voice, no words on screen

The argument is one line. A star's light travels for thousands of years, so we see stars that no longer exist. The words, the music and the wisdom of the great reach us the same way, long after the people are gone. Leave a useful trace behind and you become a star yourself. Ata, the grandfather, and his grandson are the only two characters in the film; the grandmother is spoken about and never shown. The boy arrives with a phone and no signal. What fills the silence is a real human voice. The version on this page carries English subtitles.

The craft

Four decisions that shaped the film

01

Name them out loud. Never write them down.

A hard client rule: no text and no names appear on screen at any point. The grandfather names al-Farabi, Kurmangazy and Abai in the voice track and nowhere else. That removes the title card, the caption and the safety net. The whole argument then rests on one voice and on images that carry the meaning without naming it.

02

The festival's name, arriving as an image

Qus Joly is Kazakh for the Milky Way, literally the birds' path. With no text allowed on screen, the name had to arrive as a picture. The first visual rhyme carries it: a kazan of milk over the fire dissolves into a spiral of milk, and the spiral becomes the galaxy. Two more run beside it. A photon's flight ends in the boy's pupil, and light rises off the strings of a dombra and off a writing quill. The galaxy core generates magenta by default, so every frame was regraded towards cold indigo without touching gold, faces or stars.

03

One chunk, one shot

The film was born 16:9 and widened to 21:9, 2206x946. Seedance 2.5 did the widening in omni_reference mode, which extends the sides without repainting the centre. The work went chunk by chunk. The first pass came back wrong. The model preserves a chunk's total duration but reshuffles the cuts inside it, which doubled the camp at 1:05 and deleted the scholar with the map at 2:00. The fix was a rule, not a workaround. Split strictly on the edit points, so one chunk is always one shot.

04

An ending written as a handover

The last scene is distant silhouettes of "elder brothers" walking the steppe on a path of light. It was written as a bridge into a live entrance rather than as a close, so the final frame of the film and the first step on stage belong to the same moment. ALPHA came on right after it. The deliverable was 3 minutes 5 seconds, built to hold a place in a running order. The image is generated; the two voices are real recorded performances and the score is original music written by a composer. Only the sound design was generated, by Oleg Pylypenko in Seed-Audio.

Frames

The rhymes the film is built on

  • Ata, the grandfather. One voice carries the whole film.
    Ata, the grandfather. One voice carries the whole film.
  • The grandson arrives with a phone and no signal.
    The grandson arrives with a phone and no signal.
  • A kazan of milk over the fire, the last frame before the dissolve.
    A kazan of milk over the fire, the last frame before the dissolve.
  • The milk spirals into the Milky Way. Qus Joly is the festival's name for it.
    The milk spirals into the Milky Way. Qus Joly is the festival's name for it.
  • Temirqazyq, the North Star, which barely moves.
    Temirqazyq, the North Star, which barely moves.
  • A photon's flight, ending in the boy's pupil.
    A photon's flight, ending in the boy's pupil.
  • Light rising off the strings of a dombra.
    Light rising off the strings of a dombra.
  • "Elder brothers" on a path of light, the last scene before the stage.
    "Elder brothers" on a path of light, the last scene before the stage.

The night

The night, and what we do not claim

JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY ran at Almaty Arena on 26 August 2026, with 6,000+ graduates, parents and teachers in the room. Ninety One, Zhanar Dugalova, ILHAN, Yenlik, ALPHA and Alem were on the bill. The film opened the show. ALPHA came on straight after it. On the same night, 6 students who scored the maximum 140 on the UNT, Kazakhstan's unified national test, were awarded apartments worth about 50 million tenge, a scholarship of 140,000 tenge a month, and 3 million tenge for their parents. The prize also carried a choice: a Mercedes E-Class or another 50 million tenge. Two things we do not claim. The arena's main screen is 7904x1456, a ratio of 5.43:1. That was the condition of the brief, not a delivery. What played on the night was the 21:9 master. And we did not measure the room, so anything said here about how the audience felt is design intent, not a result.

Footage of the evening: JUZ40, used with permission. Hover for a silent preview, click for sound.

Facts

The case in one table

Project The opening film for JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY
Event 26 August 2026, Almaty Arena, Almaty, Kazakhstan. 6,000+ graduates, parents and teachers attended
Flavatars' part Script and direction; image generation, sound design, edit and grade
Commissioned by Gubsky Talent Hub. End client: JUZ40
Origin of the idea The starting idea came from JUZ40. Oleg Pylypenko researched it, wrote the script and sent it to the JUZ40 art department. He took their notes and rewrote. Some notes he declined as director, because the technology would not deliver them
Runtime 3 minutes 5 seconds
Language Kazakh, with English subtitles on the version shown here
Title "Qus Joly" is Kazakh for the Milky Way, literally "the birds' path"
Style Hand-drawn 2D animation in a Ghibli register, chosen by the client from three tests (cel shading, Ghibli, painterly). Mixing with photorealism was forbidden
On screen Two characters: Ata, the grandfather (about 70), whose voice carries the film, and his grandson (9 to 11), who arrives with a phone and no signal. The grandmother is spoken about and never shown
Client rule No text and no names on screen at any point. al-Farabi, Kurmangazy and Abai are named in the voice track only
Through-line Temirqazyq, the North Star, which barely moves and by which the ancestors found their way
Generated The image. Stills and character identity in Midjourney and Magnific; motion in Seedance 2.5
Not generated The voices of the grandfather and the boy are real human performances, recorded. The score is original music written by a composer
Generated sound Sound design only: ambience, SFX and accents, made by Oleg Pylypenko in Seed-Audio
Format Born 16:9, widened to 21:9 (2206x946) in Seedance 2.5 omni_reference mode, chunk by chunk
Pipeline rule One chunk = one shot. The first pass reshuffled cuts inside a chunk, so every split after that was made on an edit point
Arena screen Almaty Arena's main screen is 7904x1456 (5.43:1). That was the condition of the brief, not a delivery. The 21:9 master is what played
Finale Distant silhouettes of "elder brothers" walking the steppe on a path of light, written as a bridge into ALPHA's live entrance
Performers on the night Ninety One, Zhanar Dugalova, ILHAN, Yenlik, ALPHA, Alem
About the client JUZ40 is an EdTech centre in Kazakhstan preparing grades 10 and 11 for the UNT, Kazakhstan's unified national test, since 2018: 180,000+ students over eight years, 287,000 Instagram followers, an International e-Assessment Award in June 2026

FAQ

Questions people ask about this film

What did Flavatars make for JUZ40 FEST?

Flavatars wrote and directed the film that opened JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY at Almaty Arena on 26 August 2026. It runs 3 minutes 5 seconds: 2D animation in a hand-drawn Ghibli style, in Kazakh, carried by the voice of a grandfather talking to his grandson. Gubsky Talent Hub commissioned the work for the EdTech company JUZ40, which supplied the starting idea.

Is the JUZ40 film AI-generated?

Partly, and the split matters. The image is generated: stills and character identity in Midjourney and Magnific, motion in Seedance 2.5. The sound is not. The grandfather and the boy are real human voice performances, recorded, and the score is original music written by a composer. Only the sound design was generated: ambience, SFX and the accents, made by Oleg Pylypenko in Seed-Audio. We label which parts are generated and which are performed, so a producer knows what they can safely claim.

How long is the film and what language is it in?

3 minutes 5 seconds, in Kazakh. The film is carried almost entirely by one voice, the grandfather's. 2 characters appear on screen: Ata, a grandfather of about 70, and his grandson, aged 9 to 11. The grandmother is spoken about and never shown. The version on this page carries English subtitles, and a hard client rule kept all written text out of the film itself.

What does "Qus Joly" mean?

Qus Joly is Kazakh for the Milky Way, and literally it means the birds path. Literally it means "the birds' path". It is the name of the festival, and because no text could appear on screen, the name had to arrive as an image rather than a title. A kazan of milk over the fire dissolves into a spiral of milk, and the spiral becomes the galaxy itself.

Why are there no names or captions on screen?

It was a hard rule from the client: no text and no names appear on screen at any point. So the grandfather names al-Farabi, Kurmangazy and Abai out loud and they are never written down. The rule removes the title card, the caption and the subtitle. The argument then has to ride on one voice and on images that carry the meaning without naming it.

Who wrote the script?

Oleg Pylypenko wrote and directed the film. The starting idea came from JUZ40. He researched it, wrote the script, sent it to the JUZ40 art department, took their notes and rewrote. Some notes he declined as director, because they asked for things the technology would not deliver. All script work and all direction on the film are his.

How was the film widened from 16:9 to 21:9?

The film was born 16:9 and widened to 21:9, 2206x946, in Seedance 2.5 omni_reference mode, chunk by chunk, because the model extends the sides without repainting the centre. The first pass failed in a specific way. The model preserves a chunk's total duration but reshuffles the cuts inside it, which doubled the camp at 1:05 and deleted the scholar with the map at 2:00. Splitting strictly on the edit points, so one chunk equals one shot, fixed it.

Was the film delivered for the arena's 7904x1456 screen?

No. The main screen at Almaty Arena is 7904x1456, a 5.43:1 ratio, and that was the condition of the brief. The chain to 5.43:1 was planned and never completed. What played on the night was the 21:9 master at 2206x946. We say so plainly, because a claimed delivery that never happened is worth nothing to the next producer who reads it.

What happened at JUZ40 FEST | QUS JOLY?

The festival was held at Almaty Arena in Almaty on 26 August 2026, in front of 6,000+ graduates, parents and teachers. Ninety One, Zhanar Dugalova, ILHAN, Yenlik, ALPHA and Alem performed. 6 students who scored the maximum 140 on the UNT, Kazakhstan's unified national test, were awarded apartments worth about 50 million tenge, a scholarship of 140,000 tenge a month, and 3 million tenge for their parents. The prize also carried a choice: a Mercedes E-Class or another 50 million tenge.

Can Flavatars write an opening film for our event?

Yes. That is what this project was: the film that opens the show and hands the stage to the next act. It was written as stagecraft, so it had to hold in Kazakh, in an arena, and finish on the beat that brings the live act on. The finished film runs 3 minutes 5 seconds. We take the writing, the direction and the pipeline, and we state which parts are generated and which are performed by people.

Some stars are already gone, and their light still shows the way. The film ends on distant silhouettes walking a path of light. That finale was written as a bridge, not as a close: ALPHA came on stage straight after it.