In the summer of 2023, Stepanakert, an Armenian-populated town in Artsakh, is under siege by Azerbaijan, preventing the filmmaker from entering the region. He instead asks his friend Artsiv and his wife, Tatev, who live there, to document their family’s daily life. A phone becomes both camera and lifeline, turning distance into an enclosed cinematic exploration of life under blockade and strife. Rather than depicting catastrophe directly, the film discovers its presence through concise, attentive images in the smallest gestures, allowing everyday life to become a visual diary. When war arrives and the family is forced into exile, filming becomes an act of mourning as they pack their rooms, gather their belongings and carry with them a handful of soil from their homeland. As the conflict and the Azerbaijani takeover of the territory increasingly fade from public and media attention, these images form a poignant counter-archive. With Here, Elsewhere, Chahbazian turns cinema into an act of preservation, keeping alive what must not disappear from history or from collective memory. (ME)

North American Premiere

Ici, ailleurs