Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

A short film “Shanghai, Baku” by Azerbaijani film director Teymur Hajiyev will compete at the prestigious Tampere Film Festival.

The festival, being one of the most important short film festivals in Europe will be held in the Finnish town of Tampere on March 9-13.

Loosely based on a short story “The Naughty Boy” by Russian writer Anton Chekhov and shot in 2015, the experimental film brought together famous Azerbaijani actors and actress such as Rasim Jafar, Roza Ibadova and Gurban Ismayilov.

It tells about the relationship of a young couple and obstacles to their happiness. Samir is an amateur filmmaker. Together with his despotic father and elder sister Roza he resides in "Shanghai" - a slum located in close proximity to downtown Baku, the capital of the oil rich Azerbaijan.

By sheer accident, Samir captures a video of Roza getting intimate with her boyfriend Rasim, an Azerbaijani gastarbeiter from Moscow. Samir blackmails Roza and Rasim with the video, well aware of threat that the couple may face in the society and reactionary mindset of his father. Rasim tries to bribe Samir, however the issue happens to be much deeper than it appears.

Teymur Hajiyev is a talented young director, producer and successful marketer. The young director, who came to this profession purely out of his personal interest to this field, believes that every beginner needs a chance to shoot a film.

Teymur’s first project was a 17-minute film “The Wound” shot in 2014, which was premiered at the Palm Spring International Film Festival.

Earlier in 2014, the film “Torn” produced by Hajiyev, written and directed by Elmar Imanov and Engin Kundag had its world premiere at the Director´s Fortnight in Cannes.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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