Imam Hasanov: This Film Forced Me to Confront Inherited Beliefs

Azerbaijani director Imam Hasanov brings to Sarajevo the story of Mamed Dadashev, a football coach in a rural Azerbaijani village who dreams of forming a women’s football team—something almost impossible in a world where girls are expected to marry as soon as possible rather than spend their days training. The film “Dreamers: People of the light” was screened in Competition Programme - Documentary Film of 31sz Sarajevo Film Festival.

 

 

After my first film Holy Cow premiered in the First Appearance competition at IDFA, I should have felt joy. But instead, I plunged into a quiet, deep depression. I kept asking myself: And now what? Subconsciously, I had expected my life to change - but it didn’t. The emptiness only deepened. I realized I wasn’t looking for recognition; I was searching for transformation. That search led me to a short documentary I made in 2016 called Hope, about refugees from Karabakh. It was a small film, but for me, it was a spark, a turning point. I couldn’t stop. Something inside me had awakened.

 

I began to dream, not only of films, but of creating a space where documentary cinema could flourish in Azerbaijan. That dream became DokuBaku IDFF in 2017. But even that wasn’t enough. I kept digging, searching for something more, something that could bring people together across generations and backgrounds. I imagined a space, part cinema, part theatre, where stories could be shared, ideas exchanged, and souls touched. That dream became Exit – Chıxış, which opened its doors in 2018. With it came Into the Wild, a music festival born from the same impulse to connect and inspire.

 

I also made a short fiction film that year, Fake—a meditation on illusion and truth. Still, my spirit was restless. I was searching for something that could not only feed my soul, but nourish the collective soul—a story that could remind us what it means to live with purpose, with light.

 

In 2019, during the DokuBaku festival, a young volunteer named Aytan Najaf told me about a man in Sheki who was trying to start the first girls’ football team in the region. His name was Mamed Dadashov. She had reported on his efforts as a journalist, and something in her voice told me this was more than just a story.

 

After the festival, I travelled to Sheki with the cinematographer, Oktay Namazov—who, coincidentally, is from Sheki himself. It didn’t take long to find Mamed. Naturally, he was at the stadium. We sat down at a tea table. He spoke about his past as a footballer, and then about the girls—about their dreams, their fears, the resistance from their families and communities. As he spoke, he cried. He wasn’t just coaching football. He was trying to create a future. A safe space for girls to imagine lives beyond the limitations imposed on them.

 

I asked him, “Do you really think this is possible?” He replied, “At least we’re trying. Even my wife, Svetlana, helps me—otherwise I couldn’t do it alone.” To be honest, I didn’t think it would work. I remember thinking: He’s a dreamer. But then I caught myself. Let him dream, I thought. And I’ll dream with him. Let’s dream big. That moment marked the beginning of our long journey together - me, DOP, Mamed, and Svetlana.

 

What began as a chance encounter became a bond. Mamed’s story unfolded not just as one about football, but about resistance against tradition, against silence, against the inherited weight of societal roles. It became a story of perseverance, of dignity, of quiet revolution. And above all, of hope. That’s how Dreamers: People of Light was born, a film not only about Mamed and the girls, but about anyone who dares to believe in a better world, even when the odds are against them.

 

 

The opening of Dreamers: People of Light was conceived not merely as a visual sequence, but as a metaphysical overture - layered in symbolism, echo, and intention. The figures descending from the sky are more than characters; they are cosmic archetypes. If you observe closely, they emerge from what resembles a vast stone jaw - an image simultaneously evoking birth and death. This duality is at the heart of the film: a spiritual rebirth, a re-seeing of the world through uncorrupted eyes

 

 

Although the coach's battle for the team is in the foreground, a real, small women's revolution takes place through the second plan. While you were working on the film, did you feel any changes in terms of girls' resistance to the way they are treated by their parents, primarily their fathers?

The film began as a story about a football team and a coach’s perseverance, but it evolved into something far deeper. Dreamers: People of Light became a film about awakening - about the silent revolution that begins in the soul. It’s about the return to an ancient, almost mythic truth, a flicker of Paradise remembered. The camera, in many ways, became a vessel, not just recording change, but channeling it. 

 

And while Mamed's battle forms the spine of the film, the girls are its beating heart. Their resistance wasn’t loud, it moved in whispers. In the choices they made at home, in their decision to stay, to keep playing, to keep dreaming, I witnessed something luminous. They began to carry themselves as if the future belonged to them, and, in a way, it does. Even the title evolved with us. It began as Dreamer, then Dreamers, then Dreamers Are Believers. For a moment, it was even Dreamers: Apocalypto Yesterday, reflecting the personal collapse I was experiencing, the breaking of old structures within myself. But finally, the film found its true name Dreamers: People of Light, a title that contains them, Mamed, Svetlana, and my own transformation.

 

This film changed me. It forced me to confront inherited beliefs about gender, power, identity. Through the girls’ journeys, I came to see my own more clearly. That, to me, is the alchemy of cinema: it begins by illuminating others, and ends by revealing yourself.