BILESUVAR

In a small town in southern Azerbaijan, time appears to have come to a standstill.  Five individual fates, loosely connected, enter the orbit of this non-place and begin to oscillate between dramatic life decisions and comic mishaps. A young man eagerly awaits entry into military service, to avoid the seeming inevitability of a shepherding "career".  Aging theatre actors squabble about an affair. A wedding singer records a music video, in which she performs an ode to "Doctor" Heydar Aliyev. Everybody needs money. Everyone actually longs to leave town for good, yet hardly anyone ever manages to make the break. In moments of relative calm, silent shots of the natural surroundings provide room for viewers to dream up their own stories. If you lose yourself here, you've got no one else to blame, because only one thing counts in the end: nothing can beat looking after a herd of sheep. In his atmospheric portrait of everyday life in the sticks, Elvin Adigozel plays with existences that couldn't be more different from one another, but which remain connected through the shared emptiness of the place they inhabit. This cinematic gem, which has an almost documentary-like feel at times thanks to Oktay Namazov's camera work, is rooted in social realism, enabling it to serve as a snapshot of a region floating in vague dreams while constantly in touch with its humble roots in animal husbandry. In so doing, Adigozel manages to paint a subtle picture of Azerbaijan's inherent austerity.