Watch Papanin (2021) Official Trailer

The Papanin district in Baku, Azerbaijan, was to be demolished several years ago. While its inhabitants keep waiting in vain for the demolition and for the relevant compensation, the life in the district moves in its own, slow pace. The black-and-white meditative film recounts, against the backdrop of the empty streets, personal microstories about the loss of illusions, the joys of everyday life, encounters of love and death. Together, the fragments of the locals’ lives form a mosaic image of a place soon to be wiped from the face of the Earth.