Small Grants on Documentary Films' Production

In early August of 2002, Internews Azerbaijan significantly put an end to its 2-month long Small Grants Program dedicated to produce the "Best Documentary Film" in an effort to enable poorly sustained filmmakers to effectively produce documentaries relating to diverse range of issues present within country. Successful result came with the case when those of best six documentaries detailed below, each 15-minute in length, were successfully unveiled by Internews at the Baku Nyzami Cinema Hall dated on August 2, 2002 honoring the National Day of Azerbaijan Cinema Day, which fall under:

1. "The World of Words" (producer - Rovshan Isgenderov, Lider TVRC)
2. "Women in Prison" (producer - Rasim Ismayilov)
3. "Zaminhara" (producer - Lala Jafarli, Space TVRC)
4. "Light of my Eye" (producer - Elchin Guliyev, Azerbaijan State Television and Radio Company)

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"It is so proud for me stating that even today I can guarantee incredible success of these films to echo from diverse ranging production festivals taken place around the globe for coming years. There is no doubt that Internews, particularly for the moment, played key contribution towards Azerbaijan media development through leaving incredible opportunity for young filmmakers to flourish their long-standing desire by producing such professionally designed documentary footages those are highly acknowledged both by public and also country-based film professionals. My hope is that Internews will regularly, at least once per a year, will find possibility to implement this kind of projects, thus play pivotal role in rebuilding independent media in Azerbaijan."

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Internews-Azerbaijan together with USAID and the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) created a competition for Azeri film directors toproduce seven documentary films about contemporary Azerbaijan, its people and social issues.

Topics included the issue of refugees living in rail cars, a young boy who supplements his family's income by playing his violin in the streets of Baku and the life of a woman who cleans houses for foreigners.