Seymour Tahirbekov
Seymour Tahirbekov is an international chess grandmaster from Azerbaijan. Having won the Candidates Tournament, Seymour earns the right to challenge the defending world champion Skroten Gudmonson in the World Chess Championship match. With a few weeks left before the championship match, Seymour’s psychological and emotional state deteriorates under escalating abuse and pressure to succeed by any means.
Preston is an indecisive film school lecturer who dreams of being a great film director like the European directors whose work he teaches - Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, Antonioni, Godard and Buñuel. One day his wife leaves him, telling him that she believes he will never be anything more than a teacher. Depressed, Preston is visited by the ghost of Ingmar Bergman who tells him to use his misery as the material for a great film just as he did in his 'Scenes from a Marriage'. Taking Bergman's advice, Preston decides to make a film, in an attempt to prove his wife wrong and in the hope of winning her back. Using the facilities of the school and the students as his crew, Preston shoots his film but soon finds that he is visited by the ghosts of series of famous, dead European directors who offer him advice on how to improve his film. Following their wise but disparate counsel his film goes wildly out of control and becomes a huge, sprawling, incoherent mess.
