WHEN A PROFESSION CHOOSES YOU

Teymur Haciyev is a young Azerbaijani filmmaker whose achievements include an honourable mention at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes, participation in the Palm Springs ShortFest - North America's largest short film festival - as well as a residency at the Summer Academy of the Locarno Film Festival. Teymur's new film, ?anxay, Bak?, was screened in competition at Tampere Film Festival, one of Europe's most important short film festivals. ?anxay, Bak? is an at-times-touching, true-to-life story of a girl named Roza and those close to her, assembled from amateur video and the recordings of a DVR, a smartphone, and other electronic devices.

- For starters, at which festivals is your film being shown?

- On March 11, 2016, the world premiere of our film took place in Tampere, Finland. That is the most important short film festival in Europe, together with the festivals in Clermont-Ferrand (France) and Oberhausen (Germany). Additionally, we have received confirmation from another three festivals, but I cannot yet officially announce which ones they are. 

- The film is shot as a "mockumentary", a mock documentary, a genre that is popular now. Did you choose that artistic technique due to the limited budget?

- I don't completely agree that the film is shot as a mockumentary. In my view, it's fairly obvious that the film isn't a documentary and that the scenes have been staged. The limited funding definitely did influence the production values of the film, but the main reason that type of storytelling was chosen was the wish to show something new, to try a new film language or at least touch upon a new accent in film language. I tried to show how our contemporary reality is recorded by the most unexpected devices - it could be a mobile telephone, it could be the camera of a DVR, a surveillance camera on the street, the camera of someone filming a wedding, someone shooting a home movie. Now I see that the attempt to tell a complete story was successful, but during filming I was very concerned that some scenes simply wouldn't fit together with one another. Those were the static scenes - the surveillance cameras as well as the DVR in the car - along with the jumpy rhythms of one of the characters' camcorder. But in the end everything was done correctly, and it's all thanks to the work of my friend and masterful editor Rufat Hasanov, who incidentally is the co-producer of ?anxay, Bak?. 

- How long did it take to create the film - from the work on the screenplay to the end of post-production?

- We began in August of 2014, and completed rendering of the master file in March 2015 - so everything took seven months. 

- Will you continue to use this artistic technique in the future?

- Probably not; I wouldn't want to leech on to one approach. Besides that, I would like to make something exciting in terms of plot, and try to reach a new level in my work with the actors. So for a while I'm going to have to hold off with the experimental tricks (laughs).

- Do you have any professional concerns about moving over to full-length work? Are you afraid of losing your sense of pacing?

- The concerns about losing my sense of pacing are there, of course, but they're not serious. In general, I always try to improve the quality of my work so as to avoid stagnation and regression. What I've done before today is, essentially, only a warm-up. The real thing is still to come.

- Is filmmaking a source of income for you yet?

Unfortunately, it isn't yet, but I hope it will be. Sometimes, of course, I'm overcome by pessimism and my hands go down of their own accord, but in the end some force still carries me on - otherwise I would have given up on this heavy burden (laughs). 

- And how about inspiration? 

In filmmaking, as in any other creative process, a simple principle is at work: if you can keep yourself from filming, then don't film. The most important part of the filming process - together with inspiration and other subtle aspects - is the cooperation among the creative team, and if suddenly your nerves give out or you're struck with a bout of stupidity, a good team won't leave you in that situation and will take on that part of the work for themselves. The most important thing is not to abuse that (laughs). 

Unfortunately, our country has few examples of successful teamwork. You can see that in our sports victories - as a rule, they are individual sports: chess, wrestling, boxing, etc. I want to believe that this trend can be changed. 

- Isn't it difficult for you to look for compromises in the creative process?

- Film is always the result of collective efforts in which you and the film crew depend on one another. Yes, there are sometimes clashing interests, and even conflicts, which in itself isn't always bad and can even be good for the project. For me it's no problem to come to a compromise on an issue if I see that the creative solution suggested to me will be better for the film than what I initially planned to do.

- I don't like giving worn-out questions like this one, but nevertheless - how did you get involved with film and why did you choose this path in particular?

- Allow me to answer with a quotation from Dovlatov: "Creative professions should be totally avoided. If you can't avoid them, then that's another matter. Then you've simply got no way out. That means it wasn't you that chose it, but it that chose you…" That describes my situation perfectly, since when I was just starting, I had no formal education in filmmaking. Only later, in the wake of the successes of 2014, was I accepted into the Locarno Summer Academy, part of the Locarno Film Festival, in which thirteen people competed for each spot. But I graduated Baku State University with a degree in Economic Cybernetics, got an MBA in marketing in the US, then spent a few years working in management positions in the field of business communication and advertising. 

Then there was filming of a clip in Egypt, where I was right on the film set for the first time. Later I produced two successful anthology films with the support of the Ministry of Taxation and the administration of the Old City, respectively. It was thanks to the films shot as part of those projects that I made it to Cannes and Palm Springs. I think that I made it into film because writing and painting require a different temperament - they're more individual forms of art. You sit one-on-one with the computer, a stack of paper, canvas. Film, though, requires completely different approaches - it's always a group creation in which you and the collective are interdependent. 

- One more cliche question: what are your artistic plans?

- It's still hard for me to answer that question. I'm somewhat disheartened by the fact that Azerbaijan still does not have a single (!) film festival, while neighbouring post-Soviet states have more than six or seven, when film festivals are a good stimulus for self-development and reaching new heights. Another curious fact is that the lion's share of success by Azerbaijani filmmakers (both arthouse and commercial) take place outside of the official sphere, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as well as the film studio Azerbaijanfilm. Azerbaijan has yet to sign a contract with Eurimages, a very influential support filmmaking support fund from the Council of Europe. This in spite of the "State Programme for the Develop-ment of Azerbaijani Film from 2008-2018", approved by the president of Azerbaijan in 2007. Needless to say, our neighbours are members of this organization and use all of its advantages to develop the filmmaking of their countries - that's very important to be successful internationally.

- What's more important when you participate at international film festivals - your personal participation, your personal ambitions if you like, or our country's participation in them through you?

- That's a very important question that requires as frank an answer as possible. Not only myself, but all Azerbaijani filmmakers in some way or another represent our country at all international film festivals. And truly, when selecting our work, many festivals try to show not only what we, filmmakers, can do with our craft, but also to give their audiences a chance to see the country we represent from a fresh angle. However, it's essential to understand a thing as simple as an artist's creative growth and the increasing scale of his works. To put it simply, making a major film is practically impossible without serious financial support, and if there aren't people in Azerbaijan who will seriously take on this field, then brain drain is inevitable.