Cold As Marble wins Best Screenplay Award at Arctic Open Film Festival

Asif Rustamov's film "Cold As Marble" has been screened in Russia.

The film won Best Screenplay Award at the 7th International Arctic Open Film Festival held in Arkhangelsk, Azernews reports.

Arctic Open screens local and international professional or first-time filmmakers, celebrating the best in Arctic-related filmmaking from across the globe.

With 15 nominations within 4 categories, the festival aims to select and promote the best films made in 2022-2023 domestically and globally; provide filmmakers with the opportunity to interact with audiences at Q&A sessions, screenings, and social events and much more.

Note that "Cold As Marble" is co-produced by Azerbaijan (Az?rbaycanfilm, ITV, Baku Media Center) and France (Arizona Films).

The film tells the story of a man (actor Elshan Asgarov), who is actually a failed artist, potentially owing to his blindness in one eye, so he has to work as a gravestone engraver, specialising in portraits of the deceased. Another peculiar thing about him is his habit of avoiding the bedroom in his modest house, even when his married girlfriend (Natavan Abbasli) visits him.

His routine changes one day when he finds an unexpected visitor who has broken into the house – his own father (Gurban Ismayilov, the winner of the Best Actor Award at the festival), who is supposed to be serving a prison sentence. The dad keeps berating the son, shouting homophobic slurs at him and trying to steer his life to bring it more into line with his own hustle schemes.

However, unlike other people, the son knows his father’s dark secret and why he was imprisoned in the first place, and the girlfriend may have a scheme of her own that can be brought to fruition only with the help of a criminal. It seems that tragedy might repeat itself in yet another cycle.

The main producer of the film is Arzu Aliyeva, and the screenwriters are Asif Rustamov and his Dutch colleague Roelof Jan Minneboo. director Asif Rustamov, production operators Oktay Namazov and Adil Abbasov, and production designer Rafig Nasirov.

The producers are Fariz Ahmadov, Orman Aliyev, and Guillaume de Seille, and the creative producer is Irada Bagirzade. Elshan Asgarov, Natavan Abbasli, and People's Artist Gurban Ismayilov co-starred in the movie.

"Cold As Marble" is Asif Rustamov's second full-length work. The cinematic work had its world premiere in November 2022 at the POFF Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where it was awarded in the category of Best Actor (Gurban Ismayilov). Besides, the movie was awarded Best Director (Asif Rustamov) at the 16th Eurasia International Film Festival in Almaty and the main prize of the jury at the 29th International Festival of Asian Films (Festival International des Cinémas d'Asie) held in Vesoul, France.

In November, the film was awarded the Best Actor Award and the Grand Prix at Moscow Premiere International Film Festival. At the same time, the screenwork won the Golden Hedgehog," the main award of film critics.