Patrick Frater
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards are to honor the late Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami with a special prize. It has commended Kiarostami’s final feature “24 Frames” and will give him posthumous admission to the APSA Academy.
“’24 Frames’ is an exquisite reverie on scenes from nature. Through still, but precise frames, and aided by subtle staging or effects, he captures the haunting, haiku-like poetry of nature, its beauty, amorousness and brutality. The play with the double meaning of ‘frame’ reflects his profound mediation on the cinematic form,” said Kim Hong-joon, hair of the APSA international nominations council.
Director of “Certified Copy,” “Taste of Cherry,” and “Through the Olive Trees,” Kiarostami died in July this year.
Director and producer, Ilgar Najaf has been awarded the APSA Young Cinema Award in partnership with Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and the Griffith Film School for his second film “Pomegranate Orchard” (aka “Nar Bagi”).
The story involves a man returning home to the humble family farmstead, surrounded by an orchard of venerable pomegranate trees, 12 years after his sudden departure. He finds that the deep emotional scars he left behind have not been erased.
The 11th APSAs will be presented on Thursday Nov. 23 at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Source: https://variety.com/2017/film/asia/apsa-honors-abbas-kiarostami-ilgar-najaf-1202593922/amp/
23 August 2018 [15:23]
ByAzernews
By Laman Ismayilova
Azerbaijani films will be screened at the 14th Kazan International Muslim Film Festival.
The film ” Tardiness” by director Tahir Tahirovich was selected for the short documentary category, Report.az informed.
Another national film “Pomegranate Orchard” by Ilgar Najaf ill be screened as part of out-of-competition program.
“Pomegranate Orchard” features a story about an old man, who lives along with his grandson and daughter-in-law in the decrepit house amidst of the huge pomegranate garden. Sudden comeback of his wayward son has changed a gentle rhythm of their peaceful existence. Forgotten bitter memories have come back and even more, new challenges are in store for them.
Scriptwriters are Asif Rustamov, Ilgar Najafov and Roelof Jan Minneboo (The Netherlands). Operator-director is Aykhan Salar (Germany), animation director is Rafig Nasirov, executive producer – Akif Aliyev, and producer – Mushfig Hatamov.
The cast includes Gurban Ismayilov, Anar Hasanov, Samimi Farhadov and Hasan Agayev.
The world premiere of the movie was held within the “East of the West” competition of the Czech Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
In 2017, Ilgar Najaf won the prize of the 11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The filmmaker gained victory in the “Young Cinema” nomination.
The 14th Kazan International Muslim Film Festival will be held in Kazan on September 4-10.
In 2018, the festival will change its usual locations in Kazan. Although the opening ceremony will be traditionally hosted by Pyramida Complex, its closing ceremony will be held at Hermitage Concert Hall.
The screenings of competition and out-of-competition programs as well as the festival’s side events will be held at Grand Cinema 3D Port at Riviera Complex, whereas Mir Cinema will showcase the festival’s parallel programs.
The first forum of the directors of international film festivals will be held within the framework of the 14th festival. The forum will provide a networking and discussion ground for film industry leaders from Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Egypt, Turkey, Croatia and Nigeria.
Since 2005, Kazan Muslim Film Festival is one of the largest film forums in Russia held annually in the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. The founders of the festival are the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Administration of the City of Kazan and the Council of Muftis of the Russian Federation. The concept of the festival is reflected through its official motto “Through the dialogue of cultures to the culture of dialogue”.
| Script | Asif Rustamov, Ilgar Najaf, Roelof Yan Minneboo |
| Camera | Ayhan Salar |
| Design | Rafig Nasirov |
| Music | Firuddin Allahverdi |
| Producer | Mushfug Hatamov, Ilgar Najaf |
| Cast | Gurban Ismayilov, Ilaha Hasanova, Samimi Farhad, Hasan Agayev, Ravshan Karimdukht |
| Production | Azerbaijanfilm, Buta Film |
| Country | Azerbaijan |
| Length | 90 |
| Year | 2017 |
| World sales | Buta Film, www.butafilm.info |
| AZERBAJDJAN | |
| 2017, 90′ |
THE POMEGRANATE ORCHARD
NAR BAĞI
Director: ILGAR NAJAF
Loosely based on Anton Chekhov’s last play The Cherry Orchard, Ilgar Najaf’s film The Pomegranate Orchard tells the story of a family in rural Azerbaijan, who are forced to sell their orchard. Najaf was born in Armenia in 1975, but in 1988 he and his family fled the country due to ethnic conflict. He went on to study film at the Azerbaijan State University in 1993. Pomegranate Orchard is his second feature film after Buta (2011).
The film opens with an interior shot of a window with a pomegranate tree in full bloom just outside. The camera pans back to reveal the young boy Jalal taking an eye examination, as his mother Sara explains to the doctor that his vision has weakened ever since he accidentally fell off the roof. During the examination, Jalal is surprised to discover that he is color-blind: when shown the color red, he responds that it is black. Back home in the orchard, Jalal asks his grandfather Shamil what color pomegranates are, invoking Sergei Paradjanov’s film The Color of Pomegranates (1969). Although his grandfather expresses surprise that he doesn’t know pomegranates are red, we already sense that Jalal’s distorted vision accurately foresees the decline and death of the orchard. Indeed, we have just heard that their neighbor Rasim wants to buy the orchard to build a factory on the land. We know the plot of this story all too well from Chekhov’s play. Adding to the foreboding mood, Sara then tells Shamil, her father-in-law, about a nightmare she had the night before: the tree branches were hitting against the windows, causing pomegranates to splatter on the glass. “The juice was running down the glass like blood,” she says and then asks (rather improbably): “Do you think it’s a good sign?” If we had any doubt about the symbolism of the dream, the next shot makes clear the connection between the pomegranates and blood. The camera cuts to the wall at which Jalal has been throwing rotten pomegranates and slowly zooms in on the blood-red juice and pulp splattered on its surface. The visual effect is striking and again seems an oblique reference to Color of Pomegranates, which deploys a similar economy of images—one of the opening shots of Paradjanov’s film, for example, shows a cloth gradually soaking up the blood-red juice of the pomegranates that sit atop it.
The ruin that Sara’s dream predicts is set in motion when her husband, Gabil, unexpectedly returns home one rainy night after a twelve-year absence. He has been in Russia and claims to have done well for himself working in Moscow. And yet, despite the fact that he boasts about driving a Volvo and regularly pays for his friends at the tea house to demonstrate his largesse, several characters note that his clothes are in tatters. He tries to convince Sara and Jalal to move back with him to Moscow, but young Jalal is resistant. He is concerned about what will happen to the orchard, since his grandfather Shamil is getting old and won’t be able to harvest the pomegranates himself. The film plays on the theme of sight; although Jalal’s physical eye-sight is lacking, he is the one who seems to have true insight into his father’s motives.
Gabil eventually convinces his wife and son to move to Russia, promising that they will have more opportunities in Moscow. Recognizing that he will not be able to tend to the orchard himself, Shamil decides to sell the orchard to his neighbor Rasim, who plans to build a factory on the land. Shamil asks Gabil to take the money from the sale of the orchard and put it in a bank account for Jalal. Instead, Gabil absconds with the money to settle his debts, abandoning the family once again. While on the bus back to Moscow, he makes a phone call that reveals he has another family there. A friend later reveals, Gabil’s daughter there was being held hostage as collateral for his outstanding debts. The revelation of this detail feels somewhat gratuitous. Although it is meant to explain why Gabil has again betrayed his family, there was little sense of the severity of his situation prior to this moment. This slowly paced drama lacks the tension it would need to carry off such a revelation.
At the end of the film, we find ourselves back in the ophthalmologist’s office. The final shot is of the same pomegranate tree framed by the window at the beginning of the film, but now the fruit on the tree is blackened and shriveled. Although Jalal’s outward eye-sight has not improved, his vision of the black fruit has indeed come to pass.
The translation of Chekhov’s play to contemporary Azerbaijan yields some interesting results. If Chekhov’s play is concerned with changing socio-economic structures—the decline of the gentry and the rise of the middle class in post-reform Russia—so, too, does Najaf’s film attend to the rise of migrant workers coming to Russia from former Soviet republics and how this disrupts traditional ways of life.
Like Chekhov’s cherry orchard, the pomegranate orchard is portrayed as a fragile idyll, with signs of the modern world slowly encroaching. And yet, we are reminded that the idyllic nature of the orchard has already been pierced. In the play, Madame Ranevskaya’s son Grisha drowned in the river, thus impelling her to abandon the estate and move abroad. In the film, we learn that Gabil’s brother died when he crashed his car into one of the trees while driving drunk. It is Gabil’s guilt over this event—he had given his brother the keys to the car even though he knew he was drunk—that motivated him to flee to Russia twelve years ago. For both characters, the orchard is the beloved ancestral home but also the site of trauma.
What is intriguing, however, is that Gabil’s character doubles as both Ranevskaya, the aristocratic landowner of the orchard, and Lopakhin, the son of a former serf who buys the estate. Like Ranevskaya, Gabil returns to the family estate from abroad, heavily in debt. Despite their financial situations, both characters make a show of generosity so that others will still perceive them as prosperous. Like Lopakhin, though, Gabil also encourages the sale of the family estate in his attempt to gain ascendancy in the new socio-economic order. And yet, one feels that the film does not do as much as it could to explore this tension in Gabil’s character.
Robyn Jensen
Columbia University
Source:http://www.kinokultura.com/2018/60r-pomegranateorchard.shtml
“Directors often feel like Christopher Columbus”
7-year old Buta lives with his grandmother in a mountain village in Azerbaijan. Life seems easy: Buta goes to school, plays with his girlfriend, fights a group of envious boys and meets a new friend and tutor, an old soap seller encouraging him by his worldly wisdom and telling him stories from a long gone past.
Buta is not just a name, it’s also a pattern on the carpets that the women in the village are weaving. Looking like a drop of water (see picture), it has a rich symbolic meaning. Looking closely, you’ll find buta’s everywhere in this film.
Ilgar Najaf: “From the beginning of the film when the meaning of the symbol is explained, the buta is omnipresent. As it is in life; buta relates to all aspects of life and its meaning differs for every individual. For the main character, buta symbolizes his entire life – he is even named after the ornament, Buta. On top of the hill, he is piling up a buta in stones, carrying them uphill like he carries every burden on his shoulders. That’s his life’s destiny.”
What is the ethnical and geographical background of the story?
Najaf: “The film was shot in a mountain village 150 kilometers from Baku. The type of fighting amongst children in the film, is typical for that region. We call it ‘chicken fights’; I was good at it as a child. In Azerbaijan ethnicity isn’t much of an issue, although people in the North and South might wear different costumes or have different traditions. But weaving carpets is something all Azeri’s have in common, up till today.”
For a western audience it’s hard to imagine people living under such primitive circumstances.
Najaf: “The film isn’t about the hardships of a life without luxury, but about relations between people. Age doesn’t make a difference. Buta is 7 years old, his best friend is 70; mankind doesn’t make a difference when it comes to ages. But that kind of village life hardly exists anymore. Small changes have a big impact on ancient traditions. Those changes have come, and even if it’s not a good thing, there is little we can do about it.”
You call those changes detrimental?
Najaf: “Globalization swallows the nature of traditions. Globalization seems pretty dull to me: like a big stomach swallowing everything and digesting it into a grey mass.”
Many events take place under the big tree. What is its role in the story?
Najaf: “The lonesome tree is a conspicuous element in the film. He is a witness, an omnipresent observer. He has seen everything: love, youth, age and death. His role continues up until the end of the movie. There are 4 sceneries in the closing sequence, shot from a helicopter: a marriage, a stone pattern, carpets… and the tree, as a last farewell. People die but the tree remains.”
The parallels between generations are a key element to the story. How do all generations connect to each other?
Najaf: “In the village, a small universe of its own, 3 generations are connected mainly through love. Buta and his girlfriend show you love in its earliest stage. There are also the love stories between a young girl and a travelling salesman, and between an old man and a grandmother. Through different generations I could show love in all its aspects.”
Main actor Rafig Azimov is amazing. How did you work with him?
Najaf: “Although Rafig is a smart kid, he is only 7 and I knew it was going to be tough for him. Therefore I planned 45 days of rehearsal, which didn’t exactly please the older actor, a renowned Azeri professional. On screen there is always a clash between professionals and non professionals and I didn’t want the audience to see or feel that in the movie.”
Directing a large group of children, was it difficult to channel their energy?
Najaf: “Honestly, if I would have known that working with children was so difficult, I never would have even started this project. The young actress was only 5. How to explain her about responsibilities? As a debuting director I found it extremely hard. For instance, the scenes with the children in the river we shot in September when it’s was already cold. Azim (Buta’s nemesis) and the others didn’t want to go into the water. Finally we found a solution: we rubbed their bodies with vodka to heat up the skin, then they played a short scene, and after every take we rubbed them with vodka again.”
Did this situation put you under pressure?
Najaf: “From the day the shooting started, I realized I was in trouble. But there was no turning back. A director on the set often feels like Christopher Columbus: he knows that at the end of the ocean, there is land, but the rest of the ship’s crew doesn’t believe there is.”
Have the people from the village already seen the film?
Najaf: “Yes! That was one of the best screenings we had.”
Can you tell a bit more about the carpet tradition?
Najaf: “Looking at a handmade carpet, the patrons reveal about the woman who made it. You can tell about her character and her moods, if she felt happy or sad or maybe in love. Like Buta’s grandmother says, ‘weaving a carpet, you can’t hide your true self’. You can read things in the use of the colours and patterns. The symbolic use of buta’s is a good example: 2 buta’s entwined means love, a big and a small buta means mother and child, 2 buta’s backwards to each other means separation, a buta with a big belly means pregnancy, etc. This is a graphic language developed by non-educated women from the villages.”
Did you do the same: weaving your own symbolic language into your film?
Najaf: “Each director puts something of himself in his movies. I recognize myself in the main character. I particularly admire his honesty; he always strives to be fair. That is what I would like to see in every person; that is my ultimate dream.”
My last question comes from the movie itself: what is better, a car or a donkey?
Najaf: “Like the question, the answer is in the movie. Living in a village like Buta, I would definitely choose the donkey!”
Gert Hermans
