Hilal Baydarov Seeks Out the Alien Area That Feels Like House, He Tells Ji.hlava Viewers

Azeri filmmaker Hilal Baydarov’s work has gained consideration for its beautiful imagery, assured framing and lyrical pacing, turning landscapes into hypnotic portraits of alien however acquainted worlds.

His masterclass on the Ji.hlava Worldwide Documentary Movie Pageant – his first ever and one he needed to be completely talked into, he says – supplied uncommon insights into his approaches and strategies, constructed round a screening of his new movie “Sermon to the Fish.”

Initially titled “Balıqlara xütbə,” the Azerbaijan-Mexico-Switzerland-Turkey movie opens on a younger lady in a wild panorama whose head is totally wrapped, virtually as if for burial, in a purple floral scarf. As she slowly lowers it, her story of a ghost village during which everybody has rotted away begins to unfold.

Her brother returns from a battle saying “We gained the battle” however quickly exhibits himself to be haunted by loss too in an account that dwells on lengthy takes of stony reliefs, twisted bushes and huge, polluted oil fields.

Having been labeled a grasp of gradual cinema, Baydarov initially studied info know-how, then turned obsessive about movie, he says, watching a whole bunch of artwork movies and realized directing underneath Béla Tarr in Sarajevo. “I realized there was one other world,” he says of the time, an perception that quickly led to creating 4 fiction movies and 5 docs, with “Birthday” and “One Day in Selimpasha” screened at Ji.hlava in 2018.

His movies are stuffed with what has been referred to as “vague imagery” that blends with an “enigmatic, barely mournful solid” and one critic referred to as his newest work “a closely atmospheric movie made up of slow-moving, bleak scenes complemented by ambient, unsettling music because it makes an attempt to reply the query of whether or not surviving is similar as dwelling.”

Though his work has gained reward and honors for years, with 2020 drama “In Between Dying” nominated for a Golden Lion on the Venice movie fest, Baydarov says “I didn’t even know I used to be making a movie” when he started taking pictures his authentic scripts.

Writing, filming, directing and modifying himself, Baydarov says no matter script he begins with is usually forgotten as soon as he begins taking pictures, preferring to comply with the sunshine and kinds he discovers on location and inspiring his actors to discover and improvise.

“We’re right here for the sweetness,” he says of his filming days, permitting no telephones or social media on set. “We’re trying to find the sweetness.”

“I uncover my movies by modifying,” Baydarov says, including that the wealthy soundscape of birds, wind, bugs and unusual unidentified tones is one thing he creates in publish manufacturing. For “Sermon to the Fish,” usually, he ran by means of a whole bunch of fowl sounds earlier than selecting those that felt proper, he says.

He typically cites a lesson from his mentor, the grand Hungarian surrealist, Tarr: “Movie like a dream, movie like a music.”
However Baydarov additionally believes that cinema is in its early days as an artwork and filmmakers are solely now studying what kinds tales and picture can take – and specifically tips on how to work with time. If the bottom unit of music is the notice and the constructing block of literature is the phrase, then in cinema it’s time, he says.

This realization drives a lot of Baydarov’s work, he says, somewhat than any curiosity find or telling a logical story. What’s going to stick with viewers far longer than scripted traces or an entertaining story, he says is one thing deeper: “Feeling.”

The younger man’s return to the deserted village in “Sermon to the Fish” and the hole, pointless victory of the battle slot in with the temper and milieu Baydarov is most snug with, exploring Azeri landscapes reworked into darkish marvel worlds, typically accented by the music of composer colleague Kanan Rustamli and, on this case, sound designer Christian Giraud.

“I don’t like to observe my movies,” Baydarov confesses, and positively is uncomfortable discussing them. He as soon as admitted making up tales about his characters when requested about them by journalists. In actuality, he says, he is aware of nothing about them.

As an alternative, he says, it’s concerning the seek for the arresting second, and all the time a shock discovery. “A great movie takes you to a spot you’ve gotten by no means been – however in a second you’re feeling it’s yours.”

“You’ll be able to by no means think about what a single picture will do for you,” he provides.