Hilal Baydarov

Hilal Baydarov is a writer/director from Baku, Azerbaijan. During his high school years, he won the national championships in mathematics twice in 2004 and 2005. In 2011, he lead the Azerbaijani team at the informatics olympiad. After a master in computer sciences, he studied at the Sarajevo Film Academy under Béla Tarr before going on to make his trilogy of documentaries set in Katech Azerbaijan: WHEN THE PERSIMMONS GREW (2019) which won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary at the Sarajevo and the Interreligious Award and Special Jury Mention at Visions du réel; MOTHER AND SON (2019) premiered in the main competition at IDFA and NAILS IN MY BRAIN (2020) at Cinema du réel. After that, he made IN BETWEEN DYING (2020) premiered in Venice Main Competition, and CRANE LANTERN (2021) in TOKYO IFF. Then, he started to work on the WAR TALES trilogy and the first film SERMON TO THE FISH (2022) premiered in Locarno Competition.