Cinema Nomad

Azerbaijan has an eclectic mix of Persian, Turkish, and Russian influences. Our filmmakers Oktay and Elvin fight to maintain their voices in this former Soviet country. Elvin, a hopeless romantic, takes pride in cinematic storytelling while trying to better his Azerbaijani community. Oktay pursues social justice stories while trying to find the proper balance between film and family man.

Daiyan, our filmmaker in Havana, is in an industry over-dominated by government control. He made his first film with $30 in his pocket to later receive full funding from the Norwegian Embassy to make his second film, “adoleCe.” As an independent filmmaker in Cuba, Daiyan is a rebel with a heart: sacrificing all he has to make cinematic art in hopes that the muse continues to inspire.

We travel to São Paulo to meet Paula, a dynamic woman who left a career as a professional journalist to become a documentary filmmaker, focused on stories that expose injustices and inequalities in Brazilian society. In São Paulo we scope out the street art splattered around the city; and our friend, Miro, takes us on a tour of Embu Das Artes, a community of craftsmen and artists.

We travel to Ghana, the first country in Sub Saharan Africa to gain independence. We visit Peter on the set of his fourth feature film. In Accra, we catch up with the voices shaping Ghana’s film industry: Juliet, a prominent filmmaker and festival director; Alpha, a passionate film scholar; and Carl, a documentarian interested in exploring the history of Ghana in his films.

Mukhlisa is the first and only film commissioner of Uzbekistan, an institution which she co-created in 2018. She is the director of a big-budget action-thriller flick, “Scorpion,” the highest grossing film in Uzbekistan’s history, which brought her national fame. She is proud to share her culture on screen as we visit this Silk Road country full of stunning Islamic architecture.

We travel towards the Arctic Circle during the Winter Solstice to experience the Northern Lights and quirky Christmas antics. Our entrepreneurial filmmaker, Eyþór, lives in Flateyri, a small town in the Westfjords, where he owns and operates the oldest bookstore in Iceland, passed down from his great-grandfather. In Iceland, democracy thrives and storytelling is cherished as an age-old tradition.

In Bucharest we visit Tedy Necula, the first disabled filmmaker in Romania. At age 12, Tedy fell in love with movies when cast as the lead actor in the film, “Noro.” By age 16, Tedy created his own commercial production company, which he still heads, filming inspirational stories. We visit film studios, quirky museums, universities, and share in Tedy’s love of wine as we celebrate his birthday.

In Istanbul we meet daring individuals forging a path in a country that’s beginning to restrict the rights of women. New censorship laws have passed, which further limits the freedoms for filmmakers. After surviving bombings, a coup, and the Gezi Park protests, our filmmakers choose to stay in their country to tell stories that represent their lives as Turkish women in the twenty-first century.