28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Birthday
synopsis
A lonely life made up of daily routine tasks is depicted in this documentary made by the director about his own mother. It’s her birthday – her husband has been dead for years and her children have forgotten her, with the exception of her son, who remains behind the camera. Despite this, the ageing woman cleans, cooks, and makes ready for a possible celebration. Cursory inspections of her mobile phone screen show that she would have been happy with just a phone message. Birthdays give new meaning to loneliness, just as the director cuts away various natural barriers of the camera image and amplifies the sound effects track to allow silence to emerge and envelop the main character.
"One day of any person is the summary of his life. What we feel in one day is the same for all our life. Nothing changes. Repetitions, Repetitions and Repetitions. Just like my mother on her birthday." H. Baydarov
biography
Hilal Baydarov was born in 1987 in Baku, Azerbaijan. During his high school years, he won the national championships of mathematics twice in 2004 and 2005. In 2011 he leads the Azeri team at the informatics olympiad in Thailand. After a master in computer sciences, he left for Sarajevo to study film directing with Bela Tarr. His debut feature film Hills Without Names was premiered at the Montreal Film Festival in 2018, the same year he won the Docu Talent award at Sarajevo Film Festival for his film Birthday. When the Persimmons Grew is Baydarov's third feature film which premiered in competition at the Visions du réel film festival in Nyon.more about film
| director: | Hilal Baydarov |
| producer: | Hilal Baydarov |
| script: | Hilal Baydarov |
| photography: | Hilal Baydarov |
| editing: | Hilal Baydarov |
| sound: | Hilal Baydarov |
