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Azerbaijani film Hostage presented in Paris

05 April 2012 09:12 (UTC +04:00)

The evening was organised by The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) and Confrontations Europe.

TEAS told APA that the screening was attended by around 70 cinephiles, being followed by a discussion in the presence of Qurban Ismayilov, the lead actor. Attendees then enjoyed a performance by the Azerbaijani singer Tarana, before heading to an Azerbaijani buffet at the restaurant Le RisalÃ©.

In her inaugural speech as President of Confrontations Europe, Claude Fischer expressed her joy at seeing Azerbaijan represented for the first time amongst the films screened in this yearâ€™s festival. She then gave the floor to Eliza Pieter, Head, TEAS France, who thanked Confrontations Europe for this initiative and stressed that such events enabled TEAS to promote cultural exchange between the Azerbaijani and French peoples. Irena Bilic, Director, Lâ€™Europe autour de lâ€™Europe, introduced the film and thanked Qurban Ismayilov for travelling from Baku to Paris on this occasion. She reminded the audience of the purpose of the festival â€“ to present rarely-shown films from various cinematic traditions to a European audience.

The film Hostage (Azerbaijan, Eldar Guliev, 2006) is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Armenian minority in the Nagorno-Karabakh region attempted to break away from Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet republics. Overnight, these former neighbours became enemies, and simple village folk suddenly became hostages in a complex power game. In the film, one of the Azerbaijani villages on the border is home to the family of Kerim, a peasant farmer, who has just been captured by the Armenians. The village council decides to take an Armenian hostage in order that an exchange can take place. They imprison a wounded Armenian in the barn next to Kerim’s house, where his wife and three children desperately await his return. The captive from the other side of the border finds himself in exactly the same situation â€“ he, too, has three children and finds economic survival to be a challenge; he has never done anything to harm anyone; and, like Kerim, just wants to go back home. But life in Nagorno-Karabakh is far more complex now. Vengeance calls for vengeance (see also the IMDb summary plot: http://imdb.to/Girov1)

During the question-and-answer session, Qurban Ismayilov and the audience discussed such topics as the development of the film industry in Azerbaijan and the reactions of the Azerbaijani audience towards him after he had played the role of an Armenian. For Ismayilov, the film sent out a message of peace, and reminded viewers that before being enemies, men were brothers, husbands and fathers. He also stressed that the film paid tribute to womenâ€™s pain and losses brought about by war. One viewer asked Ismayilov why the film was produced in 2006, yet set in the late 1980s. The actor replied that it is always difficult to talk about war when it remains fresh in the viewersâ€™ collective consciousness. He also explained that the taking of hostages was a frequent occurrence at this stage of the conflict.