Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan's feature producer Emil Najafov and his Turkish colleague Emrah Kılıç have discussed co-producing films as part of the 15th Baku International Film Festival, Azernews reports.

Speaking about the history of joint projects, Emil Najafov outlined that in contemporary cinema, this direction plays a special role.

"Since the 1990s to the present, joint production accounts for 60 to 70 percent of films that have won awards at major festivals. This trend continues today. Now, instead of two countries joining in film production, three, four, or more countries are involved. Unfortunately, this tradition has not gained wide popularity in our country. There are both objective and subjective reasons for this. In Turkiye, however, this experience has been around for many years," he remarked.

Emrah Kılıç, whose joint projects have won numerous international festival awards, shared his experiences with participants at the event.

The producer pointed out that there are examples of successful collaboration with Azerbaijani filmmakers.

"TRT 12 Punto annually awards the 'Joint Partnership' prize to three projects. But you need to apply while your films are still in the scriptwriting phase. Three years ago, we received support from TRT 12 Punto for Hilal Baydarov's project "Sermon to the Fish". I think this example can be useful for your directors as well. You can also apply to participate in such projects. However, to approach the mentioned platform, it is essential to have a partner from Turkiye," he said.

The producers then answered questions from the event participants.

Established by the Young Filmmakers Centre, the Baku International Film Festival was held on October 4-8 with the support of the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry and the Film Agency.

The project is part of the Baku Cinema Breeze (BCB) film festival. This major event also includes well-known festivals such as the DokuBaku International Documentary Film Festival, the ANIMAFILM International Animation Festival, and the Ata Turk World International Animation Film Festival.

Media partners of the event are Azernews.Az, Trend.Az, Day.Az, and Milli.Az.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr

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