Gulshat Omarova

Gulshat Diasovna Omarova (Kazakh: Гүльшад Диасқызы Өмарова, Gülşad Diasqyzy Ömarova; sometimes credited as Guka Omarova, born 8 October 1968) is a Kazakh film director, actress and screenwriter. She was born in Alma-Ata, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and now lives in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In 2004, Omarova was presented the Alice Award for Best Female Director by the Copenhagen International Film Festival for her film, Shiza.

Gulshat Omarova was born in Alma-Ata to a family of a journalist. Her father was the sports writer Dias Omarov and her mother worked in "Vechernyaya Alma-Ata". Her grandmother was the director of the High Mountain Ice Skating rink "Medeo" and her grandfather was a high official in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1984, when she was 14 years old girl, she started her career in the film called "Sladkiy sok vnutri travy" (Sweet juice in the grass), which was written and directed by Sergei Bodrov. After graduating from school at the Union of Cinematographers in Moscow, she met with Sergei Gerasimov, who was the Soviet film director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, teacher and professor. However, that year he was recruiting a group exclusively for children from Azerbaijan. He advised her to enter the next year. In the same year, Sergei Bodrov, with difficulty knocked out a place for her through the State Film Agency. This year it was watched by Alexey Batalov's apprentice, but Batalov himself left for Baku. The apprentice really liked the will and aspiration of Gulshat, so they said that next year they could take her without exams. But she went back to Alma-Ata and entered the correspondence course in Journalism. After graduating from the Faculty of Journalism, she began working on television. She worked as an administrator, courier, auxiliary worker. Then she worked as an advertiser for "Philip Morris Kazakhstan".