Cat&Docs Boards ‘Cinema Paradiso’ Style Doc ‘The Return of the Projectionist’ Ahead of Visions du Réel Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)
04.04.2024 - 19:17
/ variety.com
Lise Pedersen “The Return of the Projectionist,” which is running in the main competition at Swiss doc fest Visions du Réel, where it will have its world premiere, has been picked up by Paris-based doc specialist Cat&Docs. The feature debut of Orkhan Aghazadeh, it tells the story of Samid, a former projectionist in Azerbaijan’s remote Talysh mountains, who is determined to bring cinema back to life in his village using his old Soviet film projector.
He encounters a number of hurdles along the way but he also finds an unexpected ally in 16-year-old Ayaz, a film fan who experiments with animation clips on his smartphone and is eager to learn from Samid. Aghazadeh chanced upon the story when shooting his graduation short film “The Chairs.” Samid was to be the film’s main character but the relationship with Ayaz emerged as shooting started.
“It came as a surprise for us. We didn’t know him when we did the research for the film.
When I did the first shoot, Samid told us ‘You’ve got to meet this young guy who’s doing animation. He’s come to me [for advice] and I am helping him.’ And when we saw them together, we realized their interaction could be the core of the story,” Aghazadeh tells Variety.
The film chronicles their growing friendship, reminiscent in some ways of the tender relationship between Toto and Alfredo in Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 classic “Cinema Paradiso,” as the pair strive to get the project off the ground, roping in local women to sew together a large white sheet that will be used as a screen. Beautifully shot in and around the remote village, the film is laced with delicate moments of self-deprecating humor, illustrated by the opening scene where Samid and a friend climb the misty mountain on horse-back
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