Downstream

Ali (Namig Aghayev) is a rowing coach living in Mingachevir. He gets on with neither his wife nor his teenage son. At the same time his Polish lover (Aleksandra Andreyevska), who works alongside him, suggests they go abroad together; each time Ali hesitates. Inwardly he is a lonely man — weak-willed and irresolute, looking for happiness not in his own family but elsewhere, and this character causes trouble at home. A neighbour (Gulshad Bakhshiyeva) hints to his wife Leyla (Mehriban Zaki) that her husband is seeing someone else; Leyla, the very type of the devoted Azerbaijani woman, answers that she trusts him. Ali's relationship with his son (Elmin Imamverdiyev) is another central theme: from the first scene he humiliates the boy in front of others, telling him not to call him father in company. Having made his son captain of the rowing crew, he takes the title away shortly before the competition and gives it to another. Shaken, the boy throws himself into the water and disappears. The search for their missing son becomes the heart of the film, and it slowly begins to repair their broken family. Ali's tormented search, remorse written on his face, and Leyla's inner turmoil are drawn precisely. They unite to look for their son — and at such a moment even the Polish woman cannot part them.