THERE WILL BE MOVIES...

1998.  The Nizami movie theatre.  The audience applauds as the legendary Pierre Richard enters the room.  Those were difficult times, many people were afraid to visit Azerbaijan after hearing the enemy's propaganda against us.  And those first 23 people to arrive here as participants and guests of the 3d International Baku Film Festival gave interviews, after leaving our country, in which they spoke about their good memories of the country of Azerbaijan and its people.  And they all mentioned in their interviews that they had decided to come to the country because they knew and trusted the country's president, Heydar Aliyev, and they were personal acquaintances of festival organizer Rustam Ibrahimbayov.  This year, the 11th East-West Film Festival will take place on 18th September at the Heydar Aliyev Palace.  The main cinematographic event of the year will continue until 23 September and will be held in accordance with the schedule compiled by Baku as the capital of Islamic culture for 2009.  For now, the organization of the festival, one of the main events in the capital's cultural life, proceeds at full speed, and Lala Efendiyeva, director of the annual event, spares no effort to make certain that all goes smoothly.

She is a modest person and prefers not to give interviews.  We had to work hard to change her view that only people who are known to the public are of interest to our readers.  But when we finally received her permission for an interview, the director of the festival spoke to us not only about the way the upcoming event is organized, but also about organizational issues concerning future festivals.  But what is going on now?  Discussions with participants and guests of the festival on possible dates of arrival and departure, collecting information for catalogues, creating a screenings schedule, planning meetings and master classes within the festival, working with the press, accrediting journalists...  There are many other details which may seem uninteresting to readers, but which are the ingredients for a great and wonderful event.  This year, the theme of the festival is "Baku, cultural capital of the Muslim world."  This is why films by directors from Eurasian and Muslim countries will be shown.  A press conference on Muslim mysticism and its influence on international culture will open the festival - this idea was proposed by the president of the East-West festival.

Prestigious event

What kinds of film will be shown during the festival?  The system is routine.  "Specialists in Eurasian and Muslim cinema send us movies which, in their opinion, are of artistic or thematic interest to present-day cinematography, and the selection commission, led by the president of the festival, will view them.  Some movies are accepted, others are turned down.  Then we begin negotiations with producers, directors and actors.  Our festival has an educational function too.  We familiarize our audience with the best works of international cinematography which have already won prizes at various international film festivals.  But we are trying to show or inform the guests who come to our country as much as possible about Azerbaijan," said Efendiyeva.  Although there is no competition between the movies at the festival, awards in five nominations have already become a tradition:  "For a contribution to international cinematography" (at different times, this award has been given to Pierre Richard, Mikhail Ulyanov, Krzysztof Zanussi and others), "For the most humane message," "For the best female role," "For the best male role," "Best debut."

Lala xanum maintains that there should be more of these kinds of event in the country, because a diversity of international festivals improves Azerbaijan's image in the international arena.  "It is obvious.  Once, the small British town of Aberdeen was just an obscure provincial town.  And now it is a town which is widely known and where an annual festival of arts is held.  They organize theatrical performances, dance performances, concerts of ethnic music, painting and applied arts exhibitions and many other things.  And how about the tiny fishing town of Cannes?  There was nothing special about it!  Now it is a place of pilgrimage for cinematographers from all over the world!  We have many of the prerequisites in place to become a city known to everyone in the world and thus represent our country.  The festival was the first annual international festival in our city.  A first step has been made in the musical arts.  In August the International Music Festival was held in Qabala.  Perhaps an international festival of theatre will also be organized.  And many others...  Times change.  Every day brings something new."

The East-West festival is a prestigious event.  The very fact that someone like Italian poet, writer and script writer Tonino Guerra will take part in it testifies to this.  He has written scripts for great film directors, like Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrey Tarkovskiy, Luchino Visconti, Franceso Rosi and Theo Angelopoulos.  Incidentally, Lala xanum said that Guerra had phoned her about his participation in a film festival in Italy which begins in a few days.  "He was interested in the schedule of our festival, in which he would like to take part as a guest.  And he is ready to make his own suggestions as to how he could contribute to the Baku International Film Festival East-West.  All this testifies to the fact that the event is confidently expanding its borders, including its geographical borders.  The selection commission already has the best of the best at its disposal.  And it is not only people from near abroad - Ukraine, Russia and Georgia - who are striving to take part in the festival.  Representatives of the Rome International Film Festival want to attend our festival, proposing contacts between our festivals; our young compatriots living in Europe send in their applications; and many TV and radio companies are willing to provide support in publicising our festival.

Wherever there are movies...

"We hope that, from next year, the festival will take a qualitatively new step and become competition-based.  But many people already want to come here, and we are forced to turn many of them down because we are somewhat limited by our budget.  However, just a couple of years ago, it was much more difficult than now," stressed the East-West film festival director.  It is notable that one of the events at the festival will be an exhibition of Aleksandra Kremer-Khoma-suridze's artistic photography:  a former Bakuvian, she now lives in Paris and can stop time with moments of beauty from her camera.  And this too is one of the festival's projects - to bring together present day cinematography with its distant past - times when the camera obscura was still unable to capture a moving picture and took snapshots of artistic representations of reality; when the Lumiere brothers had not yet invented cinematography.

Speaking of local and international support for the festival, Ms. Efendiyeva said that the Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Ministry, the Con-federation of the Unions of Cinema-tographers of the CIS and Baltic Nations, the Azerbaijani Union of Cinema-tographers and the Foundation for the Centenary of Cinema-tography had been providing assistance for many years to the organization of the festival.  The Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Azerbaijani Frie-nds of Culture Foundation have traditionally provided assistance.  It is good to note that the festival is already becoming popular beyond the borders of the CIS.  It is a focus of attention and receives proposals for support with publicity from periodicals like Harper's Bazaar and National Geographic Travel-ler, which is willing to provide columns under the heading "A festival through participants' eyes".

However, des-pite the fact that the number of the applicants wishing to take part grows every year, the number of seats remains the same.  This is why the organizers are working on a project to build a Festival Centre; an architectural model of the new building is ready.  It has a concert hall with 450 seats, which is equipped with the most advanced equipment and can be easily transformed into a movie theatre, a hotel for participants, a restaurant, a conference room and an exhibition hall.  In short, everything required for an interesting and comfortable stay in Azerbaijan for festival participants and guests.  "We hope that in the near future, we will be able to hold the festival at this centre.  And then the problem of accommodating visitors will be resolved in a manner which will enable them to live and work in the same place.  This will solve the organizing of transport and the many other minor, routine problems which our staff, who prepare and organize the festival so successfully, have to deal with.  We still want to make improvements to the service we provide.  The centre will be able to host not just film festivals, but many other types of festival, which will also become traditional and popular."  For now, in the absence of a Festival Centre and with the Nizami movie theatre undergoing capital repairs, the participants, guests and audience will be received at the Azerbaijan movie theatre, the Ibrus theatre and the Union of Cinematographers.  "The opening this year will take place at the Heydar Aliyev Palace - there are 2,000 seats, the equipment is excellent, so we will have both good sound and a clear image."

It is also important that the Tonino Guerra Fund has proposed the organization of a number of events within the framework of the festival to celebrate Mr Guerra's anniversary.  After all, not many people know that the maestro likes painting.  "Bakuvians will be the first audience in the former CIS to see his works.  Then his movies will be shown.  Other interesting events will be organized.  And the fact that several great and popular stars of Italian cinema want to accompany Mr Guerra confirms that interest in Azerbaijan is growing within international artistic circles," Lala Efendiyeva concluded.