Part of the session: Memory and Archive #6
Against the backdrop of his hometown and momentous historical events, the director seeks the answer to a seemingly simple question: What is my very first memory? As the film progresses, the audiovisual topography of memory transforms into a labyrinth where trauma and disappointment may lurk around every corner, and yet we continue to navigate through it.
Matlab Mukhtarov was born in 1988 in Sumgait, Azerbaijan. He is an independent filmmaker and editor with a focus on documentary cinema. His directorial work includes two documentaries: 12/35 (2022), which won Best Azerbaijani Documentary at the DOKUBAKU Film Festival and was screened out of competition at FIPADOC, and Palaces of Memory (2025), which had its world premiere at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. Mukhtarov also works extensively as an editor and director of photography. He was the editor and DOP of Shadowed by the Plane Tree (2022), which was selected for the Short Documentary Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival. His recent editorial credits include several upcoming films featured in major international festivals.
