Rafail Gambarov to be presented highest film award

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan Union of Film-makers has announced the winners of National Film Award.

Honored Art Worker Rafail Gambarov will be presented the highest film award in the country.

The awarding ceremony will take place on National Cinema Day, which is celebrated on August 2.

Rafail (Rafig) Gambarov has been working in AzerbaijanFilm Studio. He started as a documentary filmmaker and made his debut in feature films in 1972.

In 1998-2007, he chaired the Azerbaijan Union of Photographers. In 1981, Rafail Gambarov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for Rasim Ojagov's film "Interrogation".

He worked in about forty films, including "Boys of Our Street", "Dante's Jubilee", "Before a Closed Door", "Park", "The Legend of the Silver Lake", "Country Walk", "Temple of the Air", "Istanbul Story", etc.

Azerbaijani cinema has come to be an internationally recognized modern art enjoying a huge popularity and recognition at international film festivals, which frequently award the national films.

Over the past years, more than 300 films and 1,200 documentaries, as well as hundreds of cartoons were filmed.

Shortly after the Lumiere brothers from France invented cinematography, an apparatus for making motion pictures in 1895, Russian photographer and cameraman Alexandre Michon began shooting motion pictures that depicted everyday life in Baku.

The first short, silent film of Azerbaijani cinematography "You are caught" was shown in Baku on August 2, 1898. The audience witnessed a historical event - the birth of Azerbaijani cinematography.

To honor this historical day, the national leader Heydar Aliyev signed an order on December 18, 2000, to declare August 2 as the professional holiday of cinema workers – Day of Azerbaijani Cinema.

At present, it is planned to carry out systemic reforms to develop and modernize cinema art in Azerbaijan.