RUSTAM İBRAHİMBEKOV: IT IS NECESSARY TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF OUR CINEMA

A meeting with a dramatist, People’s Writer Rustam Ibrahimbekov was held within the National Book Exhibition on October 8.

The director took part in the event initiated by “Qanun” Publishing House as an honorary guest.

Although the author complained about the high selling price of his published books, he thanked the publishing house for their initiative and described the book as follows: “This book contains my selected plays written in 50 years. There is a short author’s speech about the fate of those plays. Most of the plays in the book staged in various theaters of Europe and the United States.

One of the audience watching the event live on Facebook adressed the following question to the guest: “Although there are Nobel Prize candidates or laureates from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, where we once lived as a same, why do you think there are no such names from Azerbaijan?” Answering the question, the dramatist also commented the results of reforms in the field of cinema: “It just reminded me another thing. When some of our directors start making films, they say, “I’m shooting this for the Cannes Film Festival, another says it is for Oscar. It is wrong. We need to improve the quality of our cinema. Today, our young directors give me hope that this process will be successful. However, the Ministry of Culture, as always, stay out of the process. I do not know what they are doing. Newly appointed Rufat Hasanov is a very talented director and a good producer. But it seems working is not made it possible for him. We have been talking about “reform, reform” for 5-6 years. In the end, the department renamed, and here is our reform. Let’s go back to the Nobel or Oscars. These are random things. There are many countries in the world have high-quality films, but have not won any Oscar. The same is apposable about Nobel.”

“No film is made in Azerbaijan!” one of the participant said and the director responded it as follows: “You probably don’t know our independent film directors. For example, have you watched “Curtain” films? The “urtain” consists of 3 parts. I watched the second one. It was shot very professionally and the story is  interesting. We have several talented directors- Rufat Hasanov, Elvin Adigozel, Hilal Baydarov. Do you know Elvin Adigozal or Hilal?  No one knows these people. Because there is public screening. They somehow know the “Curtain” because it was screened at times. Most do not know others. For example, Rufat Hasanov’s film “Inside Island” was well received at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

My friend is here today- Mirbala Salimli. His films are good enough. For example,

have you watched “Red Garden” or “Hugging the fire”?  Have you seen Asif Rustamov’s films? Do you know him?  It’s a pity that you (meaning the questioning audience – IL.A.) are also an art worker, but you don’t have information on new films.”

After the question and answer session, the author signed his books for readers.

 

Izolda Lala Aghayeva