Biography
Rustam Mammad Ibrahim oglu Ibragimbekov (Azerbaijani: Rüstəm İbrahimbəyov; Russian: Рустам Ибрагимбеков; born February 5, 1939) is a Soviet and Azerbaijani screenwriter, playwright, and producer, recognized beyond Azerbaijan and the former Soviet Union. He serves as the chairman of the Cinematographers' Union of Azerbaijan and is the director of the Ibrus Theatre.
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Rustam Ibrahimbeyov's father was an art history professor from Shamakhi. He is the younger brother of Magsud Ibrahimbeyov, an Azerbaijani writer and politician. Rustam graduated from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute before studying scriptwriting and film directing at Moscow's Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. His portfolio includes over 40 film and television scripts, numerous plays, and prose works, with nearly all his scripts produced as feature or TV films. Since the 1970s, he has collaborated with director Nikita Mikhalkov. The film Urga, also known as Territory of Love or Close to Eden in North America, directed by Mikhalkov, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Felix Award in Berlin as Best European Film. Close to Eden was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995. Burnt by the Sun, another Mikhalkov-directed film, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1994 and the Grand Prize of the Jury at the 47th Cannes Film Festival.
Ibrahimbeyov is an acclaimed writer with several collections published in Russia, Azerbaijan, and internationally. He has authored more than ten theater plays performed in various theaters. Additionally, he has directed several feature films. In 2001, he established Ibrus, a cultural center in Baku that operates as a theater featuring performances in both Azeri and Russian. Currently, Ibragimbekov is the Chairman of the Confederation of Filmmakers' Unions (CFU), representing filmmakers from all former Soviet republics, Secretary of the Russian Filmmakers' Union, and a member of the European Film Academy and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He divides his time between Baku, Moscow, and Los Angeles.
