My Magical World
Date:
January 12, 2023
My Magical World
Logline
Best friends from childhood, Babek and Sahil lead a wedding band in rural Azerbaijan and dream of appearing on the famous TV show: “Baku Star”. Soon enough things are not what they seem – dreams are upended, loyalties are tested and the band’s world unravels in tragicomic ways.
Synopsis
Sahil and Babek are childhood friends and partners in a wedding band, in the small town of Sabirabad. They make pennies performing small gigs, and scheme about ways to break into the big time by appearing on “Baku Star,” an over-the-top singing program.
Their winning ticket is “My Magical World,” a beautiful song composed by Sahil and sung by Babek. They need a music video to be competitive so the band begins performing in a café to earn more money. At their café gig Babek meets Zarif, an attractive and restless waitress. She tries to convince him to move to Baku with her, to leave the band and his nagging mother behind. Babek persuades his mother to borrow money from a pawnbroker so the band can afford the music video, but then gambles her money away trying to turn it into a bigger score. Sahil sells his late mother’s gold teeth and gives that cash to Babek, but now Babek is talking seriously about leaving with just Zarif.
Sahil finds and confronts Zarif. The next day she is gone. Babek is devastated, and soon begins saying he must go to Baku to find her. When Babek walks out on the band in the middle of a wedding, Sahil gives in. He agrees to drive him to Baku to find his lover. On the way, Sahil overcome with rage and jealousy, kills Babek with a tire iron.
Back in Sabirabad, the “Baku Star” celebrities have come to sing for a local official. Sahil gets his chance to sing “My Magical World.” But when the stars ridicule Sahil’s weak voice, he realizes that by murdering Babek, he has killed his best friend and all his dreams.
Director’s Profile
Elvin Adigozel was born in the Goranboy region of Azerbaijan, where he still lives. Since his very childhood he was obsessed with watching films and this love brought him to the capital city of Baku. In 2009, he graduated from the school of directing of the State Academy of Arts. He shot his first short films while working at a television channel. In 2013 he co-directed his first feature film “Chameleon” that premiered at Locarno IFF (2013). His second feature film “Reporting from Darkness” had its World Premiere in FIDMarseille in 2018. In 2019 he shot a short film “Shooting Ms Rena’s Film!” (Busan IFF, Tallin Black Nights) followed by his new feature film “Bilesuvar” released in 2020. “Bilesuvar” was selected for the main competition of the Busan International Film Festival. He has been developing “Yashar” an ambitious feature film project which won an award at Meetings on the Bridge at the Istanbul IFF and received the Hubert Bals Award for script development. In 2018 Elvin was chosen for the Cannes Film Festival’s L’Atelier where he presented “Yashar”. During the pandemic he partnered with Maria Ibrahimova and Cinex Productions to shoot “My Magical World”, Elvin’s fourth feature about a rural wedding band. The film is currently in editing as part of First Cut Lab and will be presented as a work-in-progress at When East Meets West.
Company Profile
Based in Baku, Azerbaijan, Cinex Productions was founded in 2010. Cinex offers production services, with facilities including post-production studios, equipment, and professional crew. We work with both international and local auteur filmmakers such as German director Veit Helmer on his film THE BRA (2019), and the THE FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER (2020) produced with Alexander Rodnyansky (LOVELESS, LEVIATHAN), and distributed by Wild Bunch. Increasing local capacity for film production is one of our main missions. To that end, Cinex is in development on a debut feature film by Maria Ibrahimova together with Turkish producer Zeynep Atakan (ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, WINTER SLEEP). The project ALAGOZ was chosen for the Berlinale Co-Production Market in the Talents Section in 2020. Cinex also continues to produce independent documentaries such as CINDERELLA SYNDROME (2019), and WE ARE RUSSIA (2020) about the youth movement that supports recently imprisoned activist Alexei Navalny, premiering in Visions du Reel and DOCNYC. During the pandemic Cinex partnered with Ultra Productions and filmmaker Elvin Adigozel (CHAMELEON, BILESUVAR) to produce a feature film MY MAGICAL WORLD which is currently in editing as part of FIRST CUT LAB and will be presented at WHEN EAST MEETS WEST as a work-in-progress. Also in development with Elvin Adigozel is his feature YASHAR which won the Hubert Bals Script Development Award and was chosen for L’Atelier at the Cannes Film Festival.