END OF SEASON

It’s night time and the lights burn bright in the apartments of a tower block housing estate in Baku. Myriad individual destinies are unfolding here: we zoom in to focus on those of Samir, Fidan and their 18-year-old son Machmud. While Samir has surrendered to a sort of lethargy, Fidan is attempting to get new bearings and Machmud is planning on moving out. Harbouring different ambitions and desires for freedom, the three pursue their own parallel lives while showing practically zero emotion: affectionate interaction is kept to a bare minimum and attempts at conversation are almost always brusquely dismissed. No one has time for the others here – that is, until Fidan disappears one day during a trip to the beach. Using wonderfully subtle images, director Elmar Imanov paints an intimate family portrait set in contemporary Azerbaijan. Time and again, the camera lingers long on the individual figures, creating harmoniously illuminated tableaus that bring the main characters to the fore and lend them emotional depth in spite of their superficial reticence. Imanov and producer Eva Blondiau have succeeded in realising an astonishing project from a country that is largely underrepresented when it comes to cinema.