THE EXPERIMENTER

Ilgar Safat is one of those few Azerbaijani directors whose work is well known abroad. He was the director and he wrote the screenplay for the film "The Precinct" which not so long ago was Azerbaijan's nomination for an "Oscar". And recently at the Samad Vurgun Azerbaijani State Russian Drama Theatre there took place the premiere of his play "Pride and Prejudice", based on Jane Austen's famous novel, which was a real theatrical experiment for a cinema director. Ilgar Safat is also the artistic director of the "Narimanfilm" company.

- You didn't just turn to the classics but went straight for "Pride and Prejudice"…

- I have long since wanted to get closer to that age, that romantic period and those attitudes which were so well depicted in the novel. "Pride and Prejudice" was, arguably, the first "women's novel". It showed in bold relief how strength of feeling and the true love of two people from different classes can overcome all of life's "conventions" and in spite of everything bring them together. That is what I found interesting about the book. I wanted to show how strength of feeling, if it is genuine, can overcome all obstacles. True love is irrepressible.

- You are a film director, but in this case you turned to drama…

- I have always been interested in the theatre. As a student and living in Russia, I visited almost all the theatres in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and I never missed a single interesting production. We were taught by outstanding directors, including theatrical directors. And the book I have yet to publish is all about the question of research into the nature of the theatre and the nature of our conscience. It also speaks about theatrical methodology and stage direction. The book is called "Lucidity: Dreams of Stage Direction", and I hope to publish it soon with my own illustrations.

- Incidentally, how did the premiere go?

- We put on two plays at the Russian Drama Theatre and they both played to full houses. There wasn't a seat left in the house and people put chairs in the aisles. Of course, for me, as a director, that was great. It was clear that the audience was very interested in the subject. I think I was right in my choice of material for the play.

- You were the author of the pretty successful film "The Precinct". Do you have plans to make a new film?

- Yes, of course. I have two completed scripts. I am now working on the director's script for one of them. Of course, I don't want to talk about the subject of the film at the moment, but I can say that it will be a film about the psychology of creative art and creative pursuit. It is a very exciting and tense film - a detective story with the elements of a mystical thriller.

- Do you often watch modern films?

- Yes, sometimes I do, but I prefer to go back to the classics. I am interested in the history of the cinema and I love the silent films of the 20s and 30s.

- Why silent films in particular?

- I am convinced that all the most important films in the cinema were made before the emergence of sound. First we had sound, then colour pictures and now we have 3D. But these are merely technical innovations and they don't affect the substance. The same story lines are being filmed today as a hundred years ago, only now instead of a puppet Godzilla you have a digital one. The foundations laid to the silent cinema were so solid that, unfortunately, no-one has yet been able to come up with new ideas.

- When you speak about the films of the 1930s, do you mean American or German?

- No, not at all, I am not a geographer and I don't judge a film by which country it was made in. Each country has its own geniuses and pioneers. I am interested in people, not geography. The directors I love and whose work I see over and over again are iconic directors like Eisenstein, Murnau and Chaplin. Then there were Bergman, Tarkovskiy, Antonioni, Visconti and Bresson - they rose above national borders. They broadened the scope of the cinema as an art form and created a film language. But, paradoxical as it may sound, it was the culture of those countries and those times in which they worked that was expressed through them.

- The American Film Academy, the Cannes Festival and the famous Berlin International Festival… To what extent do they show really good cinema? Were there times when you were surprised that some stupid film won an award?

- Yes, quite often. In my view, film festivals have lost their credibility. They have become extremely politicized and tendentious. Nevertheless, they are still important. Nowadays, when there is no distribution festivals are the only chance for a film to reach the general public. This, of course, is not a healthy situation. For many directors festivals are becoming a fetish and they make their films having already "formatted" them to festival standards. But despite all the shortcomings, as I say, festivals are important. They help young directors check into the film-making process and they give their films the opportunity to reach the audience. So the festival process is a part of our profession, we must treat it calmly and not be narrow-minded, and look at it as an important link in the advancement of our work.

- Could you name some good Azerbaijani films of today?

- There have been a number of successful pictures in recent years. I would mention Samir Karimoglu's "The Intention", Elcin Mu-saoglu's "The For-tieth Door", Yavar Rzayev's "Holy An-imal", Elxan Cafarov's "Hail", "Ilqar Nacaf's "Buta" and Samil Aliyev's  "The Steppe Man". All these are very good films made by gifted people. But the point is that film making is such that it can take a year, two years or sometimes longer to make one film. So we cannot make a judgement about the state of cinematography today until a couple of years' time. Generally speaking, I think that the national cinema is emerging from the crisis and young, gifted people are coming through. A certain professional standard is being defined.

- But what was Azerbaijani cinema like before?

- In the past there was a powerful tradition of the Soviet cinema, the industry functioned well and films made in Azerbaijan were shown in all the republics of the Soviet Union. This was a single professional medium. The directors had a huge audience. Today we are in a more complex situation when it comes to distributing our films - there simply isn't one and the audience don't get to see our work. I hope the situation will change.