Tomyris

Tomiris is a 2019 Kazakhstani feature film directed by Akan Satayev, which tells the story of the queen of the Massagetae, Tomyris, and the Persian king, Cyrus the Great. The film co-stars Almira Tursyn, Aizhan Lighg, and Ghassan Massoud. The film was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan. The idea to create a film about Tomyris was brought by Aliya Nazarbayeva, the youngest daughter of the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. She was later employed as a general producer of the film. The premiere of the film took place in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan on September 25, 2019. The film received mixed reviews from critics and, as of July 2020, grossed $1.3 million against a production budget of $6.5 million. Background Tomyris was the queen of the Massagetae, an Iranian people from a Scythian pastoral-nomadic confederation of Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea, in parts of modern-day Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, western Uzbekistan, and southern Kazakhstan. She reigned in the 6th century BC. Tomyris led her armies to defend against an attack by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire, and, according to Herodotus, defeated and killed him in 530 BC.