Synopsis

Day after day Nabat carries her cow’s milk down into the village. The animal, her bedridden husband and a simple hut are all the woman has left since her son had fallen in the war. Increasing nocturnal thunder of artilleries announces the war moving closer to the settlement. All of a sudden, from one day to the next the village is completely deserted and all residents have fled. Only Nabat is left, together with her dying husband… The film tells the fate of a poor peasant woman against the background of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the beginning of the 1990s. But at the same time it is a universal parable on all mothers during the time of war. On women mourning their sons’ death, women who lovingly care for their husbands in need and who have to struggle with their own loneliness themselves. What seems to be set as a rational village chronicle by director Elchin Musaoglu, soon turns out to be interfused with poetical dream images and nature symbolism, visualising Nabat’s impressive inner self and outer world. It is the depressingly beautiful melancholia distinguishing the film from others. The melancholia derives not only from the exceptional play of Iranian Fatemah Motamed-Aria but also from the rough region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which fittingly translates to „mountainous black garden“.

Guests

Samaya Asgarova

Samaya Asgarova
International Affairs Specialist Azerbaijanfilm Nabat and Down The River
In Vienna: October 5-11

Mushfig Hatamov

Mushfig Hatamov
CEO Azerbaijanfilm  Producer Nabat and Down The River
In Vienna: October 5-10

Fatemeh Motamed-Arya

Fatemeh Motamed-Arya
Actress Nabat
In Vienna: October 8-10