Alias Kurban Saïd

Since its appearance in Vienna in 1937, the masterpiece Ali and Nino has been surrounded by mystery. The book was immediately a literary sensation, but only became known to a wider audience decades later. The original, unabridged version was never published again and various claims have been made to the name of the writer ‘Kurban Saïd’ (1905-1942). A literary quest to the true identity of the author took De Putter from Azerbaijan to the United States. The result is a lively, cultural-historical travelogue in which the director also reveals himself to be a great narrator.The film does not focus on the exotic, socially critical story of Ali and Nino, on the love between a young, aristocratic Moslim and the daughter of a Christian businessman at the time of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Alias Kurban Saïd is the penetrating investigation of an admirer, but also a human glimpse of the way in which we derive our personal identity and interpretation from history.The viewer is patiently and sensitively introduced to the many ‘heirs’ of Kurban Saïd. Each of them has his contemporary, fiery advocates and occasionally the historical debate heats up. Certainly with the aged, snorting translator Penah Xenilov at the table – the living proof of the fact that history is an eternal battle about who’s right. (SdH)