Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on October 20 awarding the outstanding Russian film director, Nikita Mikhalkov, the "Dostlug" Order of Friendship.

Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu read out the presidential decree during a solemn ceremony in Moscow dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Russian film director.

Mikhalkov, for his part, thanked the Azerbaijani president for the highest award.

“I am very thankful to President Aliyev for the high appreciation of my creativity. I have very old cultural ties with Azerbaijan. I took one of the key scenes of my first feature film ‘At Home Among Strangers’ in Azerbaijan. And even then, many years ago, I struck up a creative friendship with my Azerbaijani counterparts. I hope that I was able to justify such a high award with my creativity,” he said.

Mikhalkov also recalled his recent meeting with the head of state in Baku, where they reached an agreement on shooting joint film about Alexander Griboyedov, a Russian diplomat, playwright, poet, and composer.

The film director has repeatedly said that he is going to make a TV series about Griboyedov, the script for which was written by him and his colleagues many years ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also attended the ceremony and congratulated the prominent filmmaker.

Mikhalkov is the director of films like “Five Nights”, “Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano”, “A few Days in the Life of I.I Oblomov”, “Without Witnesses”, “Black Eyes”, “Urga: Territory of Love”, “Burnt by the Sun”, “The Barber of Siberia” and others.

He won an Oscar in 1994 for an anti-Stalin movie.

Incorporating several short stories by Chekhov, Dark Eyes (1987) stars Marcello Mastroianni as an old man who tells a story of a romance he had when he was younger, a woman he has never been able to forget. The film was highly praised, and Mastroianni received the prize for Best Actor at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for his performance.

Mikhalkov's next film, Urga, set in the little-known world of the Mongols, received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Mikhalkov's Anna: 6–18 (1993) documents his daughter Anna as she grows from childhood to maturity.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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