Every person approaches life from a different perspective, and of course, this affects the life she lives, her way of thinking, decisions, her interests, and etc. Her choices are the result of her perspective. Sometimes this makes her a coward, and other times a hero. Sometimes it makes her into a slave, and sometimes it brings her freedom. In this section, local authors approach different questions about life, space, and time inside which we flow like grains of sand, the social circumstances we are thrown into independently of our will, and the relationships connecting us, from their own personal perspective.

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

Director: Leyli Gafarova
Country: Azerbaijan
Language: Azerbaijani (En subtitles)
Age limit: 0+

Once upon a time in Shanghai’ sets a strong and confident frame around the last days of ramshackle Shanghai, a notorious slum of Baku whose bowed and painted walls skirt an operating rail line’s single track. Like the trains rumbling slowly through Shanghai’s unusual narrow main street, the neighbourhood’s stories come into fleeting view, granting glimpses of individual lives and of a place that seems almost timeless, at once impermanent and without end. As Veit Helmer, German filmmaker, makes his own use of Shanghai, glistening government-backed oil-money towers loom over the condemned homes. Meanwhile, Gafarova shows us a heat-dream collage of people’s fates and unique every day is actually affected. One of the film’s first voices, half-joking, gets it half right: “She’s not filming those who matter! She’s filming the poor people.”

Save Salaam

Director: Orkhan Adigozalov
Country: Azerbaijan 
Language: Azerbaijani (En subtitles)
Age limit: 0+

The film is about the struggle of young people against demolishing the historical building, which was formerly the temple of Malacanes. Now the building is running as Salaam Cinema.

Mahalla

Director: Michael Raybourne
Country: Azerbaijan 
Language: Azerbaijani (En subtitles)
Age limit: 0+

Filmed over four years in the slowly disappearing central neighborhood of Sovetski, Baku. The film aims to capture both the chaos and the moments of the sublime in the streets and homes of the historic area. Switching between observational, and surreal stories, by the end of this anthology film the viewer has seen a glimpse of what made Sovetski special.

They Whisper,But Sometimes Scream

Director: Lala Aliyeva
Country: Azerbaijan 
Language: Azerbaijani (En subtitles)
Age limit: 0+

The lake has no name. People call her Pir Vir, but this is the name of the shrine located nearby. Once the lake was a feminine space. Women would collect the water, but also trust their stories. She has many of them. They whisper but sometimes scream.