Ici, ailleurs – Films – Visions du Réel

Here, Elsewhere

Comes Chahbazian
Belgium, Armenia | 2026 | 67 min
World premiere
Language : Armenian
Subtitles : English, French

July 2023. Nagorno-Karabakh has been under siege by Azerbaijan for seven months. As war draws nearer, Comes Chahbazian asks his friend Artziv to f ilm his daily life with his wife Tatev and their five children. These are images of astonishing tenderness that reveal the silent resistance of a people on the verge of fleeing forever.

July 2023. Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) has been under siege from Azerbaijan for seven months. Sensing the approach of war, Comes Chahbazian asks his friend Artziv to film his daily life with his wife Tatev and their five children in Stepanakert. Although filming is something of an “unusual exercise” for them, Artziv and Tatev quickly join in. Filming becomes an act of survival – an exorcism that enables them to endure. The result is imagery of a remarkable tenderness, capturing the silent resistance of a people stripped of everything in this suspended moment. While ration tickets allow them to obtain a few scarce provisions at the end of interminable queues, the family sends Chahbazian letters that together create the diary of a siege. When the final assault comes, tens of thousands of Armenians flee, leaving behind 3000 years of history. Artziv, Tatev, and their five children pack up, placing into a small plastic bag a few handfuls of the soil they will never see again, and taking care to leave a message on the living room wall for the future Azeri occupants. A moving film about one of the great tragedies of this decade.

Aurélien Marsais

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