Acclaimed Kazakh filmmaker of Russian origin, Sergey Dvortsevoy, has been introduced as members of the jury to appraise the films competing in the international competition section of the 9th Varesh International Film Festival.

“Ayka” is a 2018 drama film directed by Dvortsevoy. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, Samal Yeslyamova won the award for Best Actress. It was selected as the Kazakhstani entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. The film was produced under the working title “My Little One”.

His 2008 feature film “Tulpan” was Kazakhstan's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign Language Film category.

Dvortsevoy worked as an aviation engineer before studying film in Moscow in the early 1990s. His films immediately garnered international acclaim, receiving prizes and recognition at festivals around the world, including the nomination of Bread Day (1998) for the prestigious Joris Ivens Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. The following year his work was presented at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, an institution dedicated to Flaherty’s adherence to the goal of seeing and depicting the human condition. Dvortsevoy’s documentaries are committed to observational filmmaking. His subjects—people living in and around a Russia in transition—try in their individual ways to eke out an existence.

Tulpan was Dvortsevoy's first fiction film; it was nominated for the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards for Best Feature Film (which it won) and Best Achievement in Directing. The Findling Award was given to him for his first film Schastye.