In October 2024, Ayten Mirzoyeva succeeded in organizing the 2024 Conference of an organization of film producers whose governing board she had recently joined, “Producers Without Borders”, at the Azerbaijan Cultural Center in France. The event, sponsored by several major companies, was yet another opportunity for Ilham Aliyev's representatives to whitewash the regime through culture, and spread his propaganda through it. But who is Ayten Mirzoyeva?
In October 2024, the “Producers Without Borders” 2024 meeting was held at the Azerbaijan Cultural Center. The event was entitled “Producers as Diplomats”. Images of the event showed Hedva Ser, a staunch supporter of Azerbaijan at UNESCO, of which she is an influential figure, and Elman Abdullayev, Azerbaijan's permanent delegate to UNESCO. This 2024 panel, initially dedicated to networking in the film and entertainment world, obviously had a political dimension, as part of Azerbaijan's policy of cultural influence.
“Producers Without Borders” is a network of film producers created in 2015 by Iranian film producer Kayvan Mashayekh. One of the network's aims is to connect film professionals with its members, “industry leaders - the decision-makers who create, finance and produce at the highest level” reads its website, with annual subscription offers ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 per year.
This year, Ayten Mirzoyeva, partner at Vasco Architectes by Thomas Schinko and board member of “Producers Without Borders”, was actively involved in organizing the meeting, which was sponsored by United Airlines, The Hollywood Reporter, JJDC Consultancy and, of course, the Azerbaijani Embassy in France and Vasconi Architectes. Ayten Mirozyeva, a close associate of the Azerbaijani Embassy in France and herself an Azerbaijani, seized the opportunity to turn the event into yet another soft-power tool for the Azerbaijani dictatorship.
Ayten Mirozyeva, who holds dual American and Azerbaijani nationality, was born on December 30, 1978 in Baku, Azerbaijan. She grew up in Azerbaijan, before moving to the USA to study at Texas A&M University. According to her LinkedIn profile, she then returned to Azerbaijan to work as head of the executive team at the Ministry of Tourism, between 2002 and 2004, before moving back to the United States, to New York, where she worked in the hotel industry in managerial positions for “Dylan Hotel”, “Eurostars Wall Street”, “Melia Hotels International” and “The Pierre New York a TAJ Hotel”.
According to a 2017 interview, Ayten Mirzoyeva moved to Paris, France, in 2015 to become more involved in the French subsidiary of Vasconi Architectes, the firm of her husband, Thomas Schinko. This architectural firm, founded in 1973, has offices in Paris, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan, according to its website. By the end of 2022, the firm was clearly facing financial difficulties, and on November 7, 2022, the Paris Court of Justice opened a procedure for its recovery, closed in March 2023.
As for her family, the same interview states that Ayten Mirzoyeva is the granddaughter of Bashir Guliyev, an Azerbaijani doctor, whom she described as “one of the most outstanding examples of Azerbaijani aristocracy”. This suggests that she comes from a privileged family. She is also the granddaughter, on her mother's side, of Rahila Mustafa Bey Mirzoyeva, whose name could also indicate an aristocratic ancestry. On her parents' side, she is the daughter of Abbasali Mirzoyev and Dilshad Mirzoyeva.
Ayten Mirzoyeva is the younger sister of Adnan Mirzoyev, born on May 30, 1974 and a senior executive at Natixis bank. He also studied at Texas A&M University in the USA. He then worked in the fossil fuel sector in Azerbaijan, from the USA with Prudential International Houston between 1996 and 1998, then in the American, Turkish and Dutch offices of Ragobank International, investing in the agri-food sectors. He left Ragobank in 2007 to join the investment bank Natixis, where he became managing director and head of the group's Kazakh office, covering Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. According to his CV, he is a financial executive who has managed “structured transactions in excess of £10 billion in specialist sectors including fossil fuel and renewables, metals and mining (including nuclear) and agriculture”. Between 2022 and 2023, he was Managing Director for the Emirates office of Natixis, still covering the South Caucasus and Central Asia area. He is still listed as an independent member of the Supervisory Board of the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan (NBU).
Ayten Mirzoyeva is also related to Magsud (also spelled “Maqsud”) Mirzayev, her uncle or cousin, born on June 18, 1970, with whom she co-founded a company in France in May 2018, Brandlens Co., dedicated to the production and sale of spirits. The two partners were assisted by Edmond Verdier and his law firm Lexlor, a lawyer with close ties to the Azerbaijani embassy in France (who is also involved in a number of real estate companies). The company has registered several trademarks, including “DeBeers Diamond Club”, “DeBeers Club”, “DeBeers Vodka” and “DeBeers Diamond Vodka”. As DeBeers specializes in the production of diamond jewelry, it might be worthwhile to investigate Ayten Mirzoyeva's links with this company in another publication.
Maqsud Mirzoyev is no stranger to Azerbaijan. He is the Azerbaijani businessman who brought McDonald's to Azerbaijan in 1999. In this capacity, he had several meetings with the dictator Ilham Aliyev, as well as with his father, Heydar Aliyev. In 2008, he was also President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan. In 2016, he was still General Manager of the fast-food brand's Azerbaijani subsidiary.
Ayten Mirzoyeva has a well-stocked address book, thanks to her social background, her professional experience in the United States and that of her family members. She doesn't hesitate to showcase her networks online, publishing numerous photographs of herself with well-known personalities, in France and elsewhere, at receptions and openings. She is also said to be a friend of Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, which would have enabled her to attend the American president's inauguration in 2017, as well as in 2025.
Her connections with current and former US power brokers even extend to former US presidents. In 2017, Aytan Mirzoyeva's son Kenan Abbaszadeh received a recommendation from George Bush.
She is also close to Azerbaijani diplomatic representations, and takes part in various events in the company of diplomats and ambassadors. For example, she was invited to a reception organized on January 26, 2023 at the Azerbaijani Embassy in India, for the 74th day of the Republic of India. In April 2024, she took part in the opening of the Azerbaijani pavilion at the Venice Biennale, organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Italy and the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture.
Ayten Mirzoyeva is also proudly seen in the company of high-ranking officials of the Aliyev dictatorship. This was notably the case in October 2024 with Hikmat Hajiyev, head of the foreign relations department of the presidential administration of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 2016, she also took a photo with Leyla Aliyeva, daughter of dictator Ilham Aliyev.
As soon as she moved to France in 2015, Ayten Mirozyeva became close to the heads of the Azerbaijan lobby in France, notably Mirvari Fataliyeva, coordinator of the lobby via the Maison de l'Azerbaïdjan and the Association des Amis de l'Azerbaïdjan, and Hedva Ser, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Cultural Diplomacy, whom she has obviously known for many years, and to whom she is very close, given her countless appearances in Ayten Mirzoyeva's publications.
We have already dedicated a publication to Hedva Ser, a lobbyist very close to Azerbaijan and its authorities, and a member of the board of directors of the Association des Amis de l'Azerbaïdjan. You can find it here.
Alongside Hedva Ser, an influential figure within UNESCO, whose executives are either unaware of or ignorant of the links with a dictatorship, Ayten Mirzoyeva met many UNESCO diplomats. The director of the US mission to UNESCO, Erika Barks-Ruggles in 2024, for example.
Hedva Ser and Ayten Mirzoyeva have also participated in the organization of events under the auspices of UNESCO. This was the case, in September 2021, for the “Rise from Ashes” forum, sponsored by Ayten Mirzoyeva's company, Vasconi Architects. According to the satellite media of the Azerbaijani lobby in France, La Gazette.az, this event enabled guests to discuss “the reconstruction of cities affected by natural disasters and wars”, a barely concealed allusion to that entire section of the Azerbaijani regime's rhetoric referring to the pseudo-destruction of Nagorno-Karabakh when it was under Armenian control. Azerbaijani musicians also performed at the forum. UNESCO and Vasconi Architectes had thus collaborated in the organization of an event that indirectly served Azerbaijani propaganda and the dictatorship's soft power.
It was already an issue to which Ayten Mirzoyeva had committed herself, at least on social networks, since while Azerbaijani forces were beheading Armenian civilians and soldiers, and forcing the displacement of Artsakh's indigenous Armenians during the 44-Day War, she was calling on Facebook and via a letter stamped Vasconi Architectes to “protect our historic cities from Armenian aggression”. This was a complete and cynical reversal of what was actually happening at the time, a fairly standard procedure used by the Azerbaijani authorities : accuse of destruction and atrocities the people they are driving off their land and martyring.
In reality, Ayten Mirzoyeva has been involved in UNESCO activities since 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile, which states that since that date she has been a volunteer for “the Center Creativity for Peace Mission” (which refers to nothing), and an “active member”.
She is in any case active alongside Hedva Ser, as we have seen, in promoting Azerbaijan's interests and clearing its regime of its recent crimes through culture, but also through her networking skills. In October 2021, she actually thanked Turkey's Altay Cengizer, then President of UNESCO's General Conference, for his “recognition of Vasconi's involvement with Azerbaijan's Gandja Reconstruction Plan during the introductory speech at UNESCO headquarters in Paris”.
In 2020, “On the instruction of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev”, the Azerbaijan State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture continued to draw up plans for the “Ganja Master Plan”, a vast urban planning project implemented by Vasconi Architects “following a call for tenders from the State General Design Institute”. In October 2024, the project still seemed to be under development. UNESCO was becoming a communication tool for Ayten Mirzoyeva's business interests.
A regular presence at events organized by the Azerbaijani Embassy in France, Ayten Mirzoyeva not only lobbies at UNESCO, where she is well connected, but has also succeeded in taking Aliyev's propaganda into the world of cinema. As we have seen, she organized the 2024 meeting of “Producers Without Borders” at the Azerbaijani Embassy in France. Although she has known Kayvan Mashayekh for at least several years, as evidenced by a 2022 interaction on Facebook, she only became a Board Member of “Producers Without Borders” in May 2024.
Ayten Mirzoyeva's initial reflex in having the event sponsored and organized by the Azerbaijani Embassy in France shows that this was an act matured upstream, and part of Azerbaijan's strategy of influence. The title of the event, “Producers as Diplomats”, is not insignificant either: it clearly demonstrates the desire to link cinema to the narrative currently put forward by Azerbaijan, according to which the dictatorship is an “actor for peace”.
However, this cruelly contradicts the various Human Rights Watch reports on Azerbaijan's war crimes against Armenian soldiers and civilians since the 44-Day War in 2020, its perpetration of ethnic cleansing in Artsakh after a nine-month blockade, its accusations of torture and ill-treatment of Armenian prisoners, and its blocking of the signing of a peace treaty with Armenia on spurious pretexts.
Ayten Mirzoyeva and “Producers Without Borders” have thus contributed to making cinema a weapon of influence in France in the service of a dictatorship. The purpose of this post is to remind those who perhaps might not be aware of the truth and took part in this event. As for Ayten Mirzoyeva and the other accomplices of Ilham Aliyev's dictatorship, we shall continue to keep an eye on their future actions.
