The almanac On the 40th Parallel consists of four short films: “Postscript”, “His Father”, “The Gift” and “The Black Garden”. It was produced in 2016 at the Azerbaijanfilm studio. Postscript tells of the Nobel Brothers company in Baku — Robert Nobel's first journey to the city, his encounter with Baku oil and the family's later work there. His Father, a psychological drama, deals with the wounds the Karabakh war left on society: a journalist and family man decides to join the fighting, and the film follows his family's anguish while he is missing. The Gift shows the love story of a newly married couple against a background of hardship — unable to pay rent or buy anniversary gifts, the young woman cuts her hair to buy a chain for her husband's gold watch while he sells the watch to buy her a clasp. The Black Garden takes its title from the black knots tied to a wishing tree, through which the film speaks of Karabakh: an elderly refugee grieves for the lost land, and when his son arranges a false television report that Karabakh has been returned peacefully, the joyful news hastens the old man's death. In the final scene the tree budding under its black knots turns tragedy toward hope.
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