In Berlin, Nussimbaum/Bey connected with the second possible Said: Baroness Elfriede von Ehrenfels, a noted bohemian figure whose signature appears on book contracts made out to Kurban Saïd. The most probable and interesting of the candidates for authorship is Lev Nussimbaum, a veritable compendium of aliases and metamorphoses who reinvented himself at every turn.īorn in Baku (site of Ali and Nino) into a Jewish family, he subsequently converted to Islam, emigrated to Germany to flee the invading Russians (his eponymous hero Ali, on the contrary, dies defending Azerbaijan from the Soviet hordes) and next resurfaced in Berlin as Essad Bey ("prince of the desert"), moving to Austria when the Nazis grew suspicious of him. Magnificent historical whodunit, wherein crumbling photographs, yellowing documents, and forgotten reels of 35mm film are invested with tremendous evocative power, should find post-fest welcome on indie cable. Renowned Dutch documaker Jos de Putter travels from Azerbaijan to Austria to the U.S., chasing down who wrote the book under the pseudonym Kurban Saïd. The mystery of the author of the 1937 cult novel Ali and Nino - a recently-rediscovered Romeo and Juliet of the Caucasus - is explored in Alias Kurban Saïd. Year: 2004 Format: 35 mm Runtime: 1 hr 20 min (80 min)
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