Tamara Stepanyan

Children are playing war games.

A tender posthumous letter to Tamara’s father, who was a film actor in Soviet Armenia. She already watched him on TV as a child before later establishing herself as a filmmaker. A captivating sleepwalk through the landscapes of Armenian film history.

With EMBERS, Tamara Stepanyan’s first feature-length documentary, the director seeks to honour the memory of her late grandmother, whom she was named after. Stepanyan visits the elder Tamara’s hometown in Armenia, where she spends time with her grandmother’s circle of friends, who discuss their memories of daily life with Tamara, bringing to light their ideological and political viewpoints in the process. As the conversations progress, a dialogue emerges between past and present – between the Tamara of today and the Tamara of two generations ago, whose life was shaped by her experiences during World War II. Despite the absence of the film’s central subject, her presence is deeply felt through her impact on those who survived her. Stepanyan’s mourning the loss of someone close to her heart is acutely apparent; here, she faces down that sorrow with a bright tribute to a wonderful woman.

Céline arrives in Armenia for the first time to legalize the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he has lied to her, that he fought in the war, usurped his identity, and that his former friends consider him a deserter.

Céline arrives in Armenia for the first time to legalize the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he has lied to her, that he fought in the war, usurped his identity, and that his former friends consider him a deserter.

Two lovers encounter in a train, separated by a wall, on February the 19th.

A tender posthumous letter to Tamara’s father, who was a film actor in Soviet Armenia. She already watched him on TV as a child before later establishing herself as a filmmaker. A captivating sleepwalk through the landscapes of Armenian film history.

A tender posthumous letter to Tamara’s father, who was a film actor in Soviet Armenia. She already watched him on TV as a child before later establishing herself as a filmmaker. A captivating sleepwalk through the landscapes of Armenian film history.

Only women, children and old people live in this Armenian village, while the men work in Russia. A life with a rhythm of its own, an independent daily life marked nonetheless by exile.

Marseille, 2014. Dozens of Armenian asylum seekers trying to survive while waiting for their application to be considered. They left behind them a country whose people have settled around the world for over a hundred years ... A country all described as desert, abandoned by its inhabitants, emptied of its life. Forced stillness, impotence, they live in an in-between space: between two countries, between two lives. In a time and abstract space, made of nothing, where their life escapes them completely. By the shore, they float in limbo.