The development of democratic reforms in the beginning of the 90s has sadly reflected on the development of culture in almost all the territories of the former Soviet Union.
The creation of freedom that was long awaited has changed the culture of the nations who once were one country. The detonator for Azerbaijan, of this phenomenon, were the well-known Garabakh events, with the beginning of these events, our cinematography was almost left without an opportunity for contact with the international arena.
Azeri cinematography has gone through this difficult period and has proven its right to exist.
Today we are interviewing the master of our national cinematography, the famous play writer, movie director, and Azeri national writer, Rustam Ibrahimbekov.
Rustam Ibragimbekov wrote the script for the famous 1994 film,"Weary from the Sun", which received prestigious international awards: a Grandpre at the international movie festival in Cannas, and also an "Oscar" award from the American movie academy.
By his initiative, for more than 10 years the Baku International Movie Festival "East-West" has been held in Baku with the presence of famous masters of the worldwide movie art. In the past year in the context of the festival in Baku there was a premiere of film epopee "Nomads" that was made by movie studio "Kazakhfilm" by scenario of Rustam Ibragimbekov, the directors-Talgat Temenov and Sergey Bodrov. This movie was made by the order of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan with the participation of "Ibrus Ltd. and True Stories Production" American companies.
The leading roles were played by stars of world movie- American actors: Jason Scott Lee, Cuno Becker, Mark Dacascos, and Jay Ernandos, their performance was supplemented by well-known stars of Kazakh film.
The destiny if this great movie project was quite lucky. After showing the movie in Cannes, the right of film distribution in the USA, Canada and England was bought by the famous Hollywood company "Miramax", which spent 20 million dollars on it, and "Wikl Bunsh 'company took the responsibility of worldwide distribution of the film.

Today we decided to distract Rustam Ibragimbekov from cinematography and ask him to speak about the Garabakh problem.

AT: Lately there've been more and more conversations about the resolution of the Garabakh conflict. In your opinion, how much should we trust such prognosis?
R.I.: I have no doubt that the problem of Garabakh will be resolved in the close future mostly because great countries are interested in it, including USA. But, of course we have to consider that there are great powers on both sides that are interested in delaying the resolution, because the conflict promotes their political activity and business.

AT: Which of the existing options of the resolution of this conflict do you consider the most appropriate and wise?
R.I.: I think that firstly we need to determine the compromise option of the decision, in which we wouldn't lose the main thing-the strategy of keeping Garabakh as a part of our territory.
The compromise is necessary both from our side and from the Armenian side; a decision that would be 100% convenient for one of the sides isn't possible.
I understand that I speak of something very well understood, but it's absolutely clear that it will be very difficult to get to a decision like that - the radical powers in both countries are using it for coming to power, and for this reason the heads of both governments are behaving extremely carefully.

AT: Doesn't a compromise mean one more defeat for us in this war?
R.I.: The opposition continues to state that there is no way it will give away the captured Garabakh. With no doubt it would be the most desirable if we, as a nation, could prove our ability to keep the unity of our country. But, unfortunately, the time has shown that our patriotism is only enough for fiery talks from lecturers In our situation we need to seek a multi-staged resolution of the problem, the first stage-is Armenia's unconditional surrender of neighboring Garabakh territories. In the process of ongoing discussions the issue of Nagorni Garabakh's status will be resolved.
The problem can't be resolved in one moment as our so-called patriots want. From the other side, the world community, particularly the West, has invested a large capital in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project. For that reason the West, more than anyone else, is interested in stability in this region. And I think that the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan is discussing an issue of his personal immunity. In case he is not elected for a new term, he realizes very well that the Armenian opposition will forgive him a compromise resolution of this problem, as the West demands.

AT: But if you think the ideal resolution of the problem is a compromise, then isn't it too late to begin the discussion?
R.I.: But how could we do it earlier? The fact that Azerbaijan can lay down conditions to Armenia- is a great accomplishment of Heydar Aliyev. When the conflict was just starting, the world was so deceived, so misinformed, that we were just helpless to change the situation. It took fifteen long years for foreign- policy work to destroy the informational blockade of our country.
Today Azerbaijan has entered the world political system and it's not possible just to erase it from the face of the earth, though there was a threat of that, actually a pretty serious threat.
Anyway, we have to honestly admit that we have lost in the war with Armenia, and the country that was defeated has to behave itself correspondingly, and that's why the fact that Azerbaijan has an opportunity today to insist on its way of the conflict resolution-is no doubt our achievement.
It's never too late to wage war; nobody can forbid us from bearing arms. If in the future, after the first stage of discussions the issue of Nagorni Garabakh's status will not be resolved, it's very important to move it to the second stage of the discussion.

AT: This way, won't Garabakh eternally be a hot spot on the Earht?
R.I.: Its hotbed will burn for a very long time and that's why we first need to become a powerful nation, so that Armenians would understand at last that the separation of Garabakh from Azerbaijan is unprofitable for them.
And we, in our place, have to clearly understand that we are fighting to get our lands back and as a result of this fight we'll become a nation of citizens who live on our territory. This means that weather we want it or not, thousands of Armenians will become (or stay) the citizens of Azerbaijan, since it's so, we have to stop screaming that Armenians are our enemies, and understand that our enemies are the extremists -nationalistic circles that are always present in every nation.
We shouldn't assimilate to Armenians, who traditionally bring up generations in hatred to Turkish speaking nations, in particular to Turks and Azeris. As we can see such upbringing doesn't lead to anything good. We have to stand up for our borders, but in the process remain peace loving and tolerant to other nations and peoples.