Introduction

Nabat lives with her bedridden husband in a house on a hill, punctuated by distant gunfire. Every morning she takes milk to a nearby village, but the tumult soon spreads to the area...
After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Elchin Musaoglu’s homeland of Azerbaijan was engulfed in war. The director, who was working in TV at the time, was deeply affected by the story of an old woman who, despite the obvious danger, refused to leave her village because her family was buried there: “I told myself that only a mother could behave like this. I sincerely believe that if more power were given to mothers, the world would be a better place.” This in turn inspired him to make Nabat, a straightforward and affectionate depiction of a mother’s love for her son, who is off fighting in the war. As with the long shot at the beginning showing the heroine delivering milk to a town in the next valley, the film is defined by its eloquent camerawork. Carefully tracing the woman’s movements, each frame is filled with a sense of wonder. Fatemeh Motamed Arya, a leading Iranian actress, brilliantly portrays the woman who is forced to endure a lonely existence.