Rauan lives in Almaty and works as a night guard at the gatehouse of a luxurious apartment building. He dreams of becoming a boxer, but doesn’t have the means to realize his ambition. For him, even coming up with monthly rent for his room is a constant struggle. Aidar, the son of an oil company CEO, dreams of traveling abroad to study. To earn the necessary credits to enter a foreign university, though, he needs to submit several reports. So, he asks a friend for help. One night, Aidar drives his luxurious car through the gate at which Rauan works. They belong to completely different worlds but both of them are desperate for something else. Meeting each other at the entrance, they head toward an irreversible outcome. Recently invited to this year’s Moscow International Film Festival, the director Poshanov, as one of the young signees of the “Manifesto for New Kazakh Cinema”—led by Adilkhan Yerzhanov—has declared that the only films he intends to make will be arthouse films, adding that Toll Bar is his first true film. (KIM Young-woo)