Dopros / İstintaq (1979)
Two years after Mimino, the cleanup gets a feature film in its own register. Allusion gives way to dramatization. The opening title card sets the film "on the eve of the historic plenum of the republican Central Committee that condemned negative phenomena." That plenum, July 1969, was the moment Heydar Aliev took power in Azerbaijan. Investigator Seyfi Ganiev pursues a case against the head of an unregistered shop, realizes higher-placed protectors stand behind the accused, and is pressed by judicial superiors to close the case. Judges take bribes, on screen, in 1979. At the Moscow premiere, Alexander Kalyagin publicly thanked Heydar Aliev for making the film possible.
Credits: Dopros (İstintaq / Допрос). Directed by Rasim Ojagov. Screenplay by Rustam Ibragimbekov. Starring Alexander Kalyagin, Hasan Mammadov, and Shafiga Mammadova. Azerbaijanfilm, 1979. USSR State Prize, 1981.