1489

synopsis

On 27 September 2020, a second war over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out between the internationally unrecognised Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan. During this forty-four-day conflict, the director's younger brother, Soghomon, who had just completed his military service, disappeared in the middle of the war zone. In an attempt to cope with the fear and uncertainty that paralyzed her family for the next two years as they tried hard to find Soghomon, Shoghakat Vardanyan began to record everyday reality on her phone's camera. A remarkably mature, harrowing and hopeful documentary debut from a director who had no previous experience with film, it proves that even the most painful loss can only be reconciled in the moment of closure.

“I made this film for the people who are still held in captivity, and for all the families who lost somebody. It is emotionally a very difficult film, but maybe watching it can be therapeutic for them.” — Shoghakat Vardanyan

Quote source: IDFA

biography

Armenian musician Shoghakat Vardanyan (1993) comes from an artistic family from Yerevan and is a member of Contemporary Sound Orchestra. She graduated in piano at the Conservatory of Music and began studying journalism in 2020, but interrupted her studies with the outbreak of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War to make her documentary debut 1489.

more about film

director:	Shoghakat Vardanyan
producer:	Shoghakat Vardanyan
photography:	Shoghakat Vardanyan
editing:	Tigran Baghinyan, Armen Papyan
sound design:	Hayk Israelyan

contact

Shoghakat Vardanyan
shoghakatvardanyan@gmail.com