Gollum and Two Stadiums: Comic Con Astana 2025 Opens in Astana

Comic Con Astana 2025 — the largest pop culture festival in the CIS and Central Asia — has officially opened in Astana, bringing together tens of thousands of fans of comics, anime, video games, and Asian pop culture. This year’s headliner is world-renowned actor and director Andy Serkis, best known for portraying Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Orda.kz reports.

Now in its fourth edition, Comic Con Astana began in 2019. After a hiatus due to the pandemic, it returned in 2023 and has since become an annual event. For the first time, this year’s festival spans two major venues simultaneously: Astana Arena and Barys Arena.

Every year, the festival grows and becomes more global, with new venues, new formats, and appearances by world-class stars. More and more guests from abroad come to Kazakhstan’s capital to be part of our community. This year, we’re scaling up: two venues, over 75,000 expected attendees, including at least 10,000 foreign tourists. We’ve also extended the duration — the festival will run for five full days,said Natalina Sergeevna, General Producer of Comic Con Astana 

This year, the festival welcomed three Hollywood stars. The headliner is British actor and director Andy Serkis, a pioneer of motion capture technology, best known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. His other notable credits include Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, and The Batman.

Esai Morales, known for Ozark, Titans, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and La Bamba;
Scott Adkins, a martial artist and actor best known for the Undisputed film series, John Wick: Chapter 4, Doctor Strange, and Ip Man 4.

All headline guests will participate in autograph signings, Q&A sessions with fans, and press conferences.

Another key highlight of the festival is the presentation of the feature film "Truce" (La Tregua) — the first joint cinematic project between Kazakhstan and Spain, created for international distribution on the global streaming platform Netflix. 

The film explores the dark historical legacy of Karlag, one of the Soviet Union’s largest labor camps. Director Miguel Ángel Vivas (Money Heist) and producer Emilio A. Pina are attending Comic Con Astana for the premiere.

A festival staple, the international cosplay competition, returns this year with a prize pool of 15 million tenge. In 2024, the grand prize winner walked away with 3.6 million tenge.

More than 150 Kazakhstani creators are participating this year in the Artist Alley and the vendor zone, showcasing their art, comics, and merchandise.

Original Author: Anastasia Prilepskaya