Arina Adju

Based on the Armenian ‘Sharakan’, a nine-part song that brings us gradually closer to meaning, Maria Saakyan’s new film further develops the poetic invention apparent in her first feature, The Lighthouse. Focusing on the world of a 14-year-old girl, Evridika, who is experiencing the first extremes of adolescent emotion, it makes effective and imaginative use of her private world centred on internet chat rooms and mobile phone recordings.

A Russian girl, a Kurdish father. The father lives in Syria, in a town near the Turkish border. The girl joins him to meet her new family and... to find her lost roots. Everything moves forward in fragments, of time and of space. It is not only an aesthetic choice. It is a form consistent with the state of war, with the fragility of existences, with the capturing of reality by the body and by the spirit. But everything moves forward, in its way, carried along by a painful energy that obstinately perforates the borders.

A Russian girl, a Kurdish father. The father lives in Syria, in a town near the Turkish border. The girl joins him to meet her new family and... to find her lost roots. Everything moves forward in fragments, of time and of space. It is not only an aesthetic choice. It is a form consistent with the state of war, with the fragility of existences, with the capturing of reality by the body and by the spirit. But everything moves forward, in its way, carried along by a painful energy that obstinately perforates the borders.

Nadira 21, and all that she has is a body. Her body. The body seduces, the body works, the body earns. The body lives beautifully. But does Nadir live? Who will win: is she her body or vice versa?

Nadira 21, and all that she has is a body. Her body. The body seduces, the body works, the body earns. The body lives beautifully. But does Nadir live? Who will win: is she her body or vice versa?

Nadira 21, and all that she has is a body. Her body. The body seduces, the body works, the body earns. The body lives beautifully. But does Nadir live? Who will win: is she her body or vice versa?

Carpathian forest under the snow. Silence. Red horses approach. A sculpture of a Soviet pioneer buried in the snow. A feminine hand rests on the frozen ground. A tear. Where do the red horses gallop? The film is structured like a collage from a personal archive, like an origami of pain.