Hilal Baydarov was born in 1987 in Baku, Azerbaijan. During his high school years, he won the National Championship of Mathematics twice in 2004 and 2005. In 2011 he led the Azeri team at the International Olympiad in Informatics. After graduating with a Master’s degree in Computer Sciences, he left for Sarajevo to study film at Sarajevo Film Academy. He was a student under acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, who founded the film.factory school in Sarajevo. Baydarov’s debut feature film HILLS WITHOUT NAMES, which he wrote and directed, premiered at the Montreal Film Festival in 2018. The same year, he won the Docu Talent Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival for his second documentary film BIRTHDAY. WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW, Baydarov’s third documentary film, received the Interreligious Award and a Special Jury Mention when it premiered at the 2019 Visions du Réel film festival in Nyon and it won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary at the Sarajevo Film Festival. MOTHER AND SON, his fourth documentary film, premiered in the main competition at IDFA 2019 and NAILS IN MY BRAIN, his fifth documentary film, is the last film in the “Katech” trilogy of documen-taries set in Katech, Azerbaijan, which also includes MOTHER AND SON, and WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW. Baydarov’s second feature, IN BETWEEN DYING will premiere in the main competition of the 2020 Venice Biennale Film Festival.
FILMOGRAPHY (Selection):
2020 IN BETWEEN DYING (feature)
2020 NAILS IN MY BRAIN (documentary)
2019 MOTHER AND SON (documentary)
2019 WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW (documentary)
2018 BIRTHDAY (documentary)
2018 ONE DAY IN SELIMPASHA (documentary)
2018 HILLS WITHOUT NAMES (feature)