Seeing & Being Seen: Female Gaze In contemporary Azerbaijani Documentary Cinema

Name: Seeing & Being Seen: Female Gaze In contemporary Azerbaijani Documentary Cinema
Start: 2025-09-20T19:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-09-20T21:00:00+02:00
Location: Donaustraße 84, 12043 Berlin, Deutschland

Schedule

Sat Sep 20 2025 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Donaustraße 84, 12043 Berlin, Deutschland | Berlin, BE

on the occasion of the exhibition Acts of Conflations,
cordially invite you and your friends to the screening evening:
𝙎𝙀𝙀𝙄𝙉𝙂 & 𝘽𝙀𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙎𝙀𝙀𝙉: 𝙁𝙀𝙈𝘼𝙇𝙀 𝙂𝘼𝙕𝙀
𝙄𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝘼𝙯𝙚𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙞𝙟𝙖𝙣𝙞 𝘿𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝘾𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙖
conceived by Aysel Akhundova

𝗦𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝟮𝟬 𝗦𝗘𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥, 𝟳–𝟵 𝗣𝗠
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁–𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗹 𝗔𝗸𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘃𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗶 𝗔𝗯𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗹𝗶.

My Grandfather's House, 2023 by Leylakhanim Gambarli (24')
The Moon Without a House, 2024 by Atanur Nabiyeva (22')
They Whisper But Sometimes Scream, 2020 by Lala Aliyeva (21')
All films are in Azerbaijani language with English subtitles.

GALERIE AC. ART & DIALOGUE
Donaustraße 84, 12043 Berlin

Documentary cinema finds itself in a moment of transformation.Where once the form was bound by rigid notions of reality, or rather representing, it today's practitioners embrace the personal, the lyrical, the speculative. They understand that reality itself is layered, that truth emerges not through distant observation but through intimate engagement, through what we might call the artist's complicity with their subject.
This evolution has not bypassed Azerbaijani cinema, where a distinctly poetic voice has begun to reshape the documentary landscape. Here, women filmmakers approach reality with an empathy that transforms seeing into feeling, documentation into reflection. Their cameras move like hands tracing memory, and their narratives unfold like whispered confidences.
It is perhaps no accident that this emergence happens within documentary rather than fiction. The form demands less capital but oﬀers greater freedom, freedom to follow intuition and to let the story breathe. In a landscape where women's stories have long been filtered through other lenses, documentary becomes a space of reclamation.
We present three short films that exemplify this new gaze: Leylakhanim Gambarli's My Grandfather's House, Atanur Nabiyeva's The Moon Without a House, and Lala Aliyeva's They Whisper But Sometimes Scream. Each work draws us into conversation with the elemental, with family, nature, and earth acting as confidants, and breaking the borders between real and fairytalelike.
Their cameras become instruments of archaeology, unearthing what lies buried in the familiar. We follow them expecting discovery, anticipating the revelation of new worlds. Instead, we encounter something more unsettling and more precious: recognition. In their patient attention to the everyday sacred, these women oﬀer us mirrors. We find ourselves looking back from the screen: seen, witnessed, acknowledged in our searching. This is the particular gift of the female gaze in documentary: it refuses the comfortable distance between observer and observed. It insists on presence, on the vulnerability of true seeing. In the end, we leave these films not merely informed but touched, carrying within us the quiet certainty that we have been, for a moment, fully here.

𝗦𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗲𝘀:
𝙈𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧'𝙨 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 𝗯𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝘆𝗹𝗮𝗸𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗺 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶 (𝟮𝟰')
Eleven years after her grandfather's passing, director Leylakhanim Ganbarli starts an emotional journey. She has never had the courage to say “farewell” to her late grandfather until now. Filled with valuable memories of their time together, she travels from Baku to Oglangala, her childhood village in Nakhchivan. As she reflects on her grandfather and awakens memories of him, her grandmother steps in to support her, marking a new, changed, more profound relationship between them.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙤𝙤𝙣 𝙒𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗯𝘆 𝗔𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗿 𝗡𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘆𝗲𝘃𝗮 (𝟮𝟮')
The filmmaker returns to her village, at the foot of the Avey mountain in Azerbaijan. The mountain is disappearing, swallowed up by quarries, and with it her memories of childhood. Once there, she films the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother; their daily life, and the tenderness that unites them. Mirroring this are her memories, together weaving a poetic tale.
𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙎𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 𝗯𝘆 𝗟𝗮𝗹𝗮 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘆𝗲𝘃𝗮 (𝟮𝟭')
In northern Azerbaijan, women come to a local lake to collect water, speaking to themselves, and speaking to the water. Director Lala Aliyeva embarks on an intuitive journey, weaving testimonies of spirit possession and maternal struggle with the natural soundscapes. As she films, the lake transforms into a sacred repository of collective memory, where exhausted and fearful voices find release. The film captures the profound interconnection between human and non-human agencies, exploring how landscape absorbs and preserves memories and history.

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀:
Pari Abbasli (she/her) is a journalist and media enthusiast with a background in journalism, media, and digital literacy. She has worked with Sevil International Women's Documentary Film Festival held in Baku, Azerbaijan for three years.
Aysel Akhundova (she/her) is a creative producer and multidisciplinary artist. She is currently producing her first feature-length film. Aysel has organized the first two editions of a grassroots international independent film festival in her hometown of Baku, Azerbaijan, and was engaged in feminist publishing as part of the Femiskop collective.
cover image: still from They Whisper But Sometimes Scream, 2020 by Lala Aliyeva (21')
more info: https://sumac.space