Businessman, October 18 2005 edition of the magazine
"NARIMANFILM" PRESENTS:
Lenin once said: “Cinema, for us, is the most important of the arts.” At least in this he was right. One can confidently say that cinema follows us all our life, from early childhood onwards, and to our logical end... We watch films to pass the time and to relax, to learn something, and sometimes we pick up a camera to preserve for history or for our descendants some fragment of our unique lives. The bravest or the most desperate leave “the trodden path” of life and become absorbed in the difficult and unpredictable film business – a business which requires talent, dedication, and skills.
Created at the end of the 1990s by brothers Nariman Mammadov and Ilgar Safat, the "Narimanfilm" film company slowly but surely works on its own style of motion picture art. And as the world of art has shown, brothers who work together are often successful: the Lumiere brothers created cinema; Ethan (the producer) and Joel (the director) Coen; the story-telling Brothers Grimm; winners of the 58th “Palme d'Or” at Cannes (for “The Child”) Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, &c.
As in a good film script, the Mammadov brothers have shared different roles in the film business by basing themselves upon their different abilities. Nariman is the films' producer. A professional lawyer, businessman and manager, he has experience of business, is widely-known in business circles in Azerbaijan and abroad, and is the author of the “The Law” column of our newspaper.
Ilgar Safat is the films' director. Safat graduated from the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of the Azerbaijan Pedagogical University in 1995. Between 1995 and 2000, his works were published in several newspapers and literary magazines in Baku. Safat has also appeared on various stages in Baku and Moscow to perform his own songs (he has written about a hundred songs). In 2002, he graduated from the Higher Courses of Script-writers and Film Directors in Moscow, where he studied in the studio of Khotinenko, and shot the film “The Grandson of the Mountains”, which has for several years has represented Azerbaijan in many European cities. After his studies in Moscow, Safat worked as a film director at the Far Eastern Newsreel Studio in Khabarovsk for a year and a half.
In 2003, the Governor of Khabarovsk province awarded Safat a prize for the film “The Roots of the Sky”. This film was shown all over the world, and took part in a number of Russian and international film festivals (including New York, Leipzig, Barcelona, Prague, Augsburg, &c). In Germany, “The Roots of the Sky” was entered in the catalogue of the best ethnographic films, and the film has also been added to the library of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Readers may be asking themselves what the Mammadov brothers' films are about, and where they can be seen? I am no film critic, so I do not wish to impose my opinion; everyone has his own point of view of what constitutes intelligent cinema. Besides, you will soon be able to see the works of "Narimanfilm" in cinemas and on television.
Russia – tired of horror films, violence, foul language, Hollywood blockbusters and obscenity – has decided to create a film festival about the eternal human values which are professed by Islam. The “Gold Minbar” will be the first international film festival of Muslim cinema. The festival was founded by the Mufti Council of Russia in association with the Islamic World TV company, and is supported by the president of Tatarstan Mintemir Shaymiev. The festival is due to take part in the celebrations surrounding the 1,000th anniversary of the foundation of Kazan. Its purpose is to reflect the real cultural and moral traditions of Islam, and to create a positive image of Islam as a counterbalance to the Islamophobia apparent in the Russian and Western film industries.
The film festival's organizers are well aware of "Narimanfilm"'s long history. Among the 80 films from 15 different countries near and far will feature the company's original production, “The Grandson of the Mountains”
The actress and director Elena Tsyplakova and actor Sergey Shakurov will take part in the jury of this grand cinema forum, alongside director Andrey Zvyagintsev (whose film "Returning" has received 27 awards worldwide), film critic Kyrill Razlogov, and other outstanding figures of cinema in the Islamic world. Our compatriot Rustam Ibragimbekov will head the jury. To work and to communicate in such a campaign costs a lot, and if your film is nominated and admired it means that your job is worth doing.
After the film festival we will inform you, dear readers, of the results. The film of our compatriots the Mammadov brothers will undoubtedly find its spectator and will be given good marks by the jury, and will thus give a positive impulse to creativity. But it is therefore necessary not to stop but to go even further. Just as "Narimanfilm" does.
"Narimanfilm" is currently shooting a new film, “Love for 6 Cents”. As they say: Kheyirli Olsun! - Every Success!
