Səhnə Arxası

Pricier than water, cheaper than everything else...

When we were 22–23, we slowly started venturing into the city center (I grew up in the Rasulzade settlement myself). Next to the Nizami cinema there was a karaoke club, and five or six of us friends would get together and go there to sing. Actually, it was Shaban who got us into it. Mostly he sang himself, and we sang backup. Each table got the microphone for three songs, and if I'm not mistaken, every extra song cost extra. So there were serious debates over which songs to choose — which ones would impress the ladies at the other tables the most. The bill was split among us like brothers. Once our friend Pumba (his real name is Tural; he just looked like the famous character from "The Lion King") even protested: "What is this, I ate one Raffaello, sang 'Искала' twice (he meant Zemfira's song), and you're taking six manats from me." Six manats may seem like little to you now, but in 2008–2009 it was real money for students. Oh, and we never had much money. But we still wanted to have fun. So whenever we went to that karaoke club, we always ordered the same drink. Tonic! (That Tonic in the yellow can.) It tasted bitter as poison and gave us no pleasure at all. Why did we order it?! Because it was the only drink that was pricier than water and cheaper than all the others. But we acted as if we were tonic connoisseurs. We drank it with such confidence, like the villain in American movies drinking whiskey. We told the waiter "one tonic each" so casually, you'd think we'd been raised on tonic instead of sweet tea. I haven't drunk tonic in years. And I doubt I'll ever want to again. I don't sing karaoke anymore either. The worst part is that I don't see those friends every day like before. Once or twice a year. Life tastes like that Tonic now...

When I started writing the film "Maybe..." (back then it was called "Heyif" — "What a Pity"), I hadn't yet acted in a single film, hadn't shot anything and hadn't written anything. Back then my friends from Nar — Rustam and Ibrahim — and I were shooting "love stories" for weddings and earning a little here and there. But I didn't really enjoy shooting love stories, because when you watch the video you know from the very start that they'll end up together. No drama, no conflict.

"Maybe..." started from a simple idea. What would happen if ghosts came to the house of a man who had built a time machine?! How can fantasy and mysticism live in one film? Overall, though, the script was about regret. Every now and then I would come back to this script, poke around in it here and there, and put it aside again. And during that time I lost my father. I didn't know back then that death could be so unexpected. I began to live the regret of the time I hadn't spent with my father, the conversations we never had, so deeply that I became as regretful as the ghosts in the script. The main character finally had his main reason to go back to the past — to go back and spend time with his father! While writing the script bit by bit over the years, I shot short videos, acted in films, wrote other scripts and made another film. One day, reading "Maybe..." again, I thought: its time has come. I called producer Nijat Khalilov, and he immediately said, let's shoot it. I was surprised! A few years earlier he had turned this film down. But that very day, talking to someone, they had discussed time machines, and that person had said that if there were a time machine, he would go back and get the Austrian painter admitted to university — and since that same line was in my script, Nijat remembered "Maybe...", and ten minutes later I called him: maybe we should shoot "Maybe..."?! He took this coincidence as a sign and agreed. And so the process began: actors were gathered, sponsors were sought, locations were chosen — in short, we got ready for filming. During that time my mother also left us, and moved into the script... It was a very difficult, chaotic shoot. We filmed in Gobustan on the windiest day in Azerbaijan, we sat in the editing room day and night to make it to cinemas on time, we got into cinemas, we received an award for the script, and, for better or worse, we brought the film to life. I think an author shouldn't talk about their own film. I don't want to say anything about the film itself either. That is for the audience to say. However personal and dear this film is to me, in the end it is for the audience. I'm putting the link in the comments — you can watch it there. I need a little time before I can judge the film myself. Maybe years later I'll say I wish I had never made this film, or I'll be glad that I did. I don't know! What I do know is that we'll always have a reason to say "maybe..."