HE HOPED THAT HIS WORK WOULD LAST FOR EVER

His story "On Distant Shores", co-authored by Imran Qasimov, was mandatory reading on the school curriculum. Most of us are familiar with this tale about the Azeri intelligence officer Mixaylo [Mikhaylo] who fought in the resistance movement against fascism in Italy during the Second World War. If we have not learnt about this story from the book, then we know about it from the film of the same name with the screenplay written by Saidbayli himself. At the end of the 1940s Saidbayli graduated from the cinematography faculty at the well-known VGIK (All-Russia State University of Cinematography [now the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography]) where he studied under the great [Soviet Russian film director] Sergei Eisenshtein. When he returned to Baku, in the early years after the institute, Saidbayli wrote screenplays for documentary films. 

A society-orientated director

Once he had gained sufficient experience, he went over to directing feature films. His first film came out in 1954. This was the musical "For my own people", in which the leading roles were played by Rasid Behbutov, Polad Bulbuloglu and Sona Aslanova. The film's co-director was the prominent Jan Frid, the director who made almost half of the legendary Soviet musical comedies ("Dog on the Hay", "The Bat" and so forth). The songwriter for the film was [Azeri conductor and composer] maestro Niyazi himself. Unfortunately hardly any copies of this film have survived today.

Saidbayli directed eight full-length feature films, among them "The Telephonist", "Nasimi", "Our Cabis muallim", and "Find that girl". He wrote the screenplays for the films "For My Own People", "On Distant Shores", "Under Sultry Skies" and others. He worked with great composers like Qara Qarayev, Tofiq Quliyev and Niyazi. He made films with the director Rasim Ocagov, the actors Mirza Babayev, Hasan Turabov, Amaliya Panahova, Safiqa Mammadova, Nasiba Zeynalova, Rasim Balayev and many others. 

Today it can proudly be stated that the films by this splendid director are being restored. The head of the State Film Fund, Rasad Qasimov, told Regionplus that two of Saidbayli's feature films were restored in 2011. These were "Why Are You Keeping Quiet?", made in 1966, and "Our Cabis muallim" (1969).

"It was Hasan Saidbayli's interest in what was happening in society that made him stand out," the actor Rasim Balayev said in an interview. "In difficult times when there was censorship, he always tried to promote the making of the most vital films."

At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s there were signs of a "thaw" in the [Soviet] Union and in that period Saidbayli was appointed the president of the Union of Cinematographers of Azerbaijan. It was precisely under his tenure that films about the really burning topics of the day began to appear in Azerbaijan's cinema. Eldar Quliyev's "In One Southern City" and Rasim Ocagov's "Interrogation" were released at that time. Saidbayli had to do a lot to defend these films against the top Moscow officials who were in charge; "The Interrogation" (a film about the corruption permeating the country) was banned several times, but they did eventually allow it.  

The hidden message in the film "Nasimi"

At that time Saidbayli himself made the film "Nasimi". This film was strikingly different from most of the Soviet and Azeri historical films of that time. As a rule, they were very costly to make, but at the same time the plots were feeble and full of pathos. The public did not like those films, so small audiences just went to enjoy the grandiose battle scenes and did not reflect on them ever again. It was just like today's young people going to see a regular blockbuster. 

It was quite a different story with "Nasimi". Cinema-goers remembered this film and loved it. The most surprising thing is that this historical film turned out to be topical and right-up-to-date. Saidbayli had never worked simply to film grandiose scenes, to gain awards or promote his career. He hoped that his work would last forever. This film openly features the fate of a thinking person living in an epoch of tyranny (which is mentioned in the films introductory titles). "If there are bad shoemakers in the country, then people will be walking around in poor-quality shoes and, if the teachers are incompetent, the whole of the population will be ignoramuses," says the main character, a late medieval thinker [14th-century poet], Said Imadaddin Nasimi. Words like this in the film were sufficient for it to be banned, but the fact that "Nasimi" was not made by any old director, but by the president of the republic's Union of Cinematographers obviously played a part here.

"I recall that in those years I ended up in hospital due to the excessive stress I was under," Rasim Balayev, who had played the philosopher himself, recounts. "Then they told me that they were going to offer me the role of Nasimi himself at that time. I really needed that role as had not had a part like that up until then, and then I was offered parts in two films. The second was Arif Babayev's film "Your First Hour", the actor recounts. "The deadlines were very tight, and Saidbayli was very keen that I should be the one to play the part. So I was taken to the film set of "Nasimi" by helicopter. When I asked him many years later why he had chosen me, Saidbayli said that the decisive factor was that he had once seen me reciting poetry on television when he was with the screenwriter Isa Huseynov. "Besides that they were fundamentally against engaging a well-known actor for the part," Balayev recalls. "At that time, it was the fashion to engage famous Soviet actors for the main parts in our films, but for Saidbayli it was fundamentally important that an Azeri should play this part".  

The actor stressed that Saidbayli had done a great deal not only for him, but also for Azerbaijan's cinematographers as a whole.

Making his own films, working in the position of head of Azerbaijan's film-making industry, Saidbayli also paid fitting attention to prose-writing as well. Speaking in modern terms, his novel "From Fight to Fight", which describes the immediate post-war years during which criminals went on the rampage like never before in the Southern Caucasus, can be called a "thriller". He also wrote "Places I've Seen", a collection of essays on his official visits to Japan, the USA and Yugoslavia. He was the author of the novels in dialogue about the Caspian, "Shipyards" and "Xazar" as well, besides writing several plays. 

On 22 December Azeris are to mark the birth anniversary of this outstanding master film-maker who would have been 93 years old.