Photos: THE RETURN OF THE PROJECTIONIST Documentary to Premiere on INDIEPIX UNLIMITED

THE RETURN OF THE PROJECTIONIST, winner of Best International Documentary at the Torino Film Festival, will premiere exclusively on INDIEPIX UNLIMITED on November 6, 2026.

High in the mountains of Azerbaijan, in a remote village where the cinema has long fallen silent, an old projectionist decides to make the screen glow again. Samid was once the projectionist in Sym, a remote village in Azerbaijan's Talysh Mountains, back when cinema was the heart of village life -- but those days are long gone. Samid now earns his living repairing radios and TVs, but he never stopped hoping to show films again, and his old Soviet-era projector still waits, gathering dust in his basement. A year after losing his son in a workplace accident, the bereaved projectionist decides to bring his neighbors back together in front of the silver screen.

Unfortunately, the obstacles pile up quickly: a broken bulb, no screen, a censorship committee, village rumors, and a lone surviving film print that's missing its ending. Then he finds an unexpected ally in Ayaz, a spirited 16-year-old fascinated by filmmaking and the possibilities of images on a phone. Together, they climb hills to find a signal to order a bulb, persuade the villagers to sew a screen, and weld old video recorders back to life. Samid passes on the patience and craft of the projectionist, and Ayaz brings the energy of a generation raised on social media. Fifty years apart, one moving forward in life and the other through grief, they form a tender friendship and as the seasons change, Samid and Ayaz bring together two generations and two visions of cinema: one rooted in memory, craft and collective experience, the other in curiosity, technology and the future.

And when the projector finally flickers to life and the villagers gather in the darkness, the question is not simply whether the film will work. It is whether, for one night, cinema can bring a grieving man -- and an entire community -- magically back to life.

Select Awards/Festivals

Salem Film Fest (2025) l Winnner, Best Cinematography

Transilvania Int'l Film Festival (2025) l Winner, What's Up Doc? Competition

Hong Kong International Film Festival (2025) l Official Selection

Helsinki Documentary Film Festival (2025) l Official Selection

Torino Film Festival (2024) l Winner, Best International Documentary

Deutscher Kamarapreis (2024) l Winner, Best Camera Award

Visions du Reel Int'l Film Festival (2024) l Nominee, Grand Prix Award

Chicago Int'l Film Festival (2024) l Nominee, Gold Hugo, Best Documentary

About the Film

THE RETURN OF THE PROJECTIONIST (2024)

Directed by: Orkhan Aghazadeh

Produced by: Francois-Pierre Clavel, Lino Rettinger

Cinematography by: Daniel Guliyev

Editing by: Nicole Schmeier

Genre: Documentary

RT: 87 minutes

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Sound: 2.0 Stereo