There Was Never a Better Brother

Colour, 35 mm
Azerbaijan, Russia, Bulgaria, 2010, 93 min
WP – World premiere
Section: East of the West - Films in Competition

Synopsis

This story of two, temperamentally different brothers takes place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku in the 1970s. The elder brother, Jalil, is a married postal worker who keeps bees as a hobby. Like those creatures, he approaches life with measured care. Younger brother Simurg is by nature more adventurous and, in contrast to his sibling, is capable of going after his goals, not just dreaming about them. And when a beautiful neighborhood girl charms the young men, their character differences become apparent once again. There Was Never a Better Brother is based on the novel of the same name by the director’s father Maksud Ibragimbekov. Using deep colors and intriguing visual compositions, Ibragimbekov brings the recent past back to life and adds other narrative layers: visions and memories of childhood. Despite the fact that the film is set in Soviet era Baku, its message stresses universality.

About the director

Murad Ibragimbekov (b. 1965, Baku, Azerbaijan) graduated in direction from Moscow’s VGIK film academy (1989). He shot his first features based on the literary work of his father, writer Maksud Ibragimbekov, including The Waltz of the Golden Calves (Vals zolotykh teltsov, 1993). After another literary adaptation, this time True Stories (Istinnye proishestviya, 2000) by Mikhail Zoschenko, he came out with the comedy Three Girls (Tri devushki, 2006) shot according to his own script. He has also made inroads into the field of documentary filmmaking, receiving international recognition (a Silver Lion at Venice) for the short film Oil (Neft, 2003). The director also occasionally acts in his own movies and those of others, among them Larisa Sadilova’s With Love, Lilly (S ljubovju, Lilja), screened at the Karlovy Vary festival in 2003.