LEONID PAVLUCHIK , film reviewer for the Trud newspaper
CINEMA – TERRITORY OF LOVE
The International Forum of National Cinematographies named after Rustam Ibragimbekov will take place in Moscow this fall.
A little over a year ago, an outstanding figure in cinema, theater, literature, and people’s writer of Azerbaijan, Rustam Ibragimbekov, passed away. An Eastern sage and an intellectual on a European scale, he knew and was able to do everything, succeeded everywhere and almost always achieved extraordinary creative results in everything.
He wrote scripts for films, including such masterpieces of domestic and world cinema as “White Sun of the Desert”, “In This Southern City”, “Interrogation”, “Guard Me, My Talisman”, “Filer”, “See Paris” and die”, “Burnt by the Sun”, “Urga. Territory of Love”, “The Barber of Siberia”, “East-West”… This list can be long – Ibragimbekov created the script basis for almost fifty films.
He composed wonderful plays that had a huge resonance in their time (“The Woman Behind the Green Door”, “House on the Sand”, “Touch”, “Funeral in California”, “Lion Like”), which were staged all over the globe – from Baku and Moscow to Berlin, Prague and New York. He wrote original prose, which in Azerbaijani, Russian, English, French, German, Turkish was distributed around the world with a total circulation of 500 thousand copies…
He produced the talented works of his colleagues (“Dyuba-Dyuba”, “Taxi Blues”, “Nomad”) and himself staged brilliant films (“Waltz of the Golden Calves”, “The Man Who Tried”, “Family”) and performances in Moscow and Baku theaters. He created and determined the artistic policy in the unique Russian-Azerbaijani theater “Ibrus”, which gave performances in two languages.
He also invented and organized the international festival “East-West”, which was held with great success in Baku. Rustam also initiated the Golden Arch Award, which united screen masters on the vast Eurasian film continent. And for decades he headed the Confederation of Unions of Cinematographers of the CIS and Baltic Countries and the Union of Cinematographers of Azerbaijan.
Living in two countries, thinking and writing equally brilliantly in Azerbaijani and Russian, Rustam Ibragimbekov during his lifetime became a symbol, an ambassador of friendship between the peoples and countries of the former USSR. He is buried in Baku on the Alley of Honor, but he is remembered and loved throughout the post-Soviet space.
The Confederation of Unions of Cinematographers, which after the departure of Ibragimbekov was headed by the Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Cinematographers, Honored Artist of the Republic of Belarus Viktor Vasiliev, decided to perpetuate the memory of the master. This year, in Moscow, with the financial support of the Presidential Grants Fund and the A. M. Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Support Fund, the International Forum of National Cinematographies, which was once initiated by Rustam Ibragimbekov, will be resumed.
More than 50 films from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan will take part in this film screening. The winners will receive prizes in the categories “Best Feature Film”, “Best Non-Fiction Film”, “Best Debut”, “Best Animated Film”, “Best Short Film”, “Best Student Debut”.
At the Forum of National Cinematographies, an educational space will be created for young authors and students of creative specialties.
The seminar (online format) will allow aspiring directors, playwrights, critics, producers, actors, journalists (those who are studying in the Russian Federation) to get acquainted with the outstanding works of filmmakers from different countries.
Master classes (online format) with current personalities of the modern film process will be open not only to Forum participants, but also to other young film industry professionals – Russian and foreign.
The organizers of the Forum are planning to hold a round table in an online format, which will become an expert and discussion platform for discussing the current situation in the field of culture and art.
As part of the international film project, there will be a non-commercial screening of films that have never been released in Russia. The Rustam Ibragimbekov Forum will present the best examples of national cinematography of different types and genres.
In September, dozens of filmmakers – recognized masters and debutants – will come to Moscow for the Rustam Ibragimbekov Forum.
Cinema is still the territory of love. And also friendship and mutual understanding. And there will be an evening dedicated to the memory of the person who believed in it…
Photo by L. Pavlyuchik. Full version – in the magazine “On the Screens”, No. 6, 2023