Interview by Ramin Naziyev, Baku. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Film director Ali Isa Jabbarov, the main producer of the “Buta-Film” studio, head of the Association of Young Film-makers and the secretary of the Azerbaijani Union of Cinematographers talks to VK about the current situation in Azerbaijani film production and cinema.
Continuation, See "Ali Isa Jabbarov: “Azerbaijani cinema is in a stage of self-identification”.
What type of movies should be made so that the audience started loving Azerbaijani cinema?
The Azerbaijani audience has degraded because of low-quality mass production, show-business and the meihana competition. Meihana is a national folklore genre, something like Azerbaijani rap, for example the brothers Rustamov and their hit “Who Are You? Go Away, Bye!” These days audiences and readers are far away from high culture, they need bread and circuses. This is normal, but the performances should be of good quality. Bringing people back to the movie theatres is not a question of one year. We need to create a serious state program. We all – film-makers, NGOs, unions – should think how to bring people back to our films so that they start loving our national movies. Schools should have lessons about the national cinema so that they watch the most important Azerbaijan movies. It can be included in the program on history or literature. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan and the
Ministry of Education should make a list of movies recommended for schools, young people should know these movies and these names.
The Azerbaijani audience loves comedies and musicals. What is the reason for this choice?
It is the oriental mentality. All the East loves this type of movie – Indians, Arabs, Turks and us. There is nothing bad about it, but these musicals and comedies should be of high quality. It should not be a cheap and primitive entertainment. If it is a comedy it should be on the level of those of Louis de Funes and Pierre Richard. If we make a musical, it should be no worse than the operettas of Uzeir Gadjibekov, Said Rustamov, Rauf Gadjiyev. We have
good examples to emulate.
How can Azerbaijani film-producers surprise the world audience?
The film-makers can do the same as the singer Alim Gasymov, jazz-singer Aziza Mustafazade, artists Takhir Salakhov, Togrul Narimanbekov and Javad Mijavadov. National character, talent, sincerity, diligence, Caucasian and Azerbaijani specificity… But it is necessary to understand that the film can use some ethnic or folklore topics, but if there is no human story that is clear without translation, there will be no movie. We can surprise the world with good human
stories, sincere stories about people. Cinema loves truth. There are no good movies that did not point to the truth of life.
In the last years many independent film studios have opened in Azerbaijan, they are dealing with TV, documentary and short-film production. Can a private company make a good full-scale movie?
In all the developed states business life is very intense, there is a big advertising market and huge TV channels with billions in turnover. Our advertising market is very weak, we are worse than Georgia. The budgets of our local TV channels are also very low. There are only two channels financed form the budget – AZTV and the Public channel – that have relatively high budgets because of state donations. TV should order movies. It can demand high-quality movies, show it in the movie theatres and then on the TV. Many good movies in world history were ordered by the TV channels. The famous Italian RAI channel financed the films of Antonioni, Tarkovsky and Fellini. The absence of a advertising market and big TV channels that can order the movies and a lack of interest of businessmen in the national culture creates conditions in which the private companies are not inclined to make proper films but rather video-clips and commercials that bring easy money. The TV channels do not finance new movies, they just show old movies of Azerbaijanfilm and pay a ridiculously small sum of about 100 dollars for it. We will not have a proper film maker while there is no chain of movie theatres, no good advertising market and no big TV channels, while the problem of piracy is unsolved. A film market works when the movies pay off, while we do not have this mechanism. Some years ago there was a market for low-budget comedies, but it collapsed. The producers who were investing money in these movies did not want to invest in quality, and the audience got fed up with cheap comedies. This market disappeared without developing. At the moment there is no mechanism for the national films to pay off.
Which topics interest young film-makers? What kind of movies do they like to shoot?
Among the young generation there are many non-professionals, those who are not in the right place, for whom the cinema is in fact not that important. The only advantage of the younger generation of Azerbaijani cinema is that it is better at communication, uses the internet, watches new films, Western films, reads the history of the cinema, many read serious literature on the cinema. And they have a lot of energy. I do not divide people into young and old, rather
professionals and non-professionals. The best representatives of the younger generation of Azerbaijani cinema are interested in films that tell sincere stories about the problems of Azerbaijani people. Films that are clear without translation, real films. Recently we see a lot of movies that have plenty of music and dialogue, but no cinema.
