When on 19 September 2023, the Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh commenced, the Artsakh-born director Anna Mkrtumyan was studying film abroad, finding herself very much trapped in a painful and traumatic situation: how to make a film about this, while being so removed from it all? “I was on the edge of quitting the program,” Mkrtumyan admits over Zoom. “But at one point, this realization came to me, of why I am in this program: I’m here to make my voice louder.’” This sudden shift kicked off an inward journey of personal and artistic expression, crystalizing in the wonderful short film Armat, competing in the Apricot Stone competition.
Beautiful close-ups of trees in a dense forest of Portugal serve as a powerful metaphor here for resilience and displacement. In this natural environment, Mkrtumyan reflects on what makes an ecosystem or community survive. She explains: “I was so upset with people, that I went to forests, because I could relate more with the trees. I started filming them as well, and wanted to show that they are huge.” Most of all, Mkrtumyan wanted to find out what would happen with these trees if they’d get separated from their environment. Could they survive this violent process? This question brought her in touch with biologist Cristina Cruz, who could offer solace from the perspective of the natural sciences. “In the end, of course, a lot of trees can’t survive this removal,” Mkrtumyan acknowledges, “but if you’re taking good care of them, they will be traumatized, but will live.”
Such a tender metaphor for the displacement of ethnic Armenians from Artsakh is seldom portrayed in film. And still, Armat manages to go even deeper, by connecting this insight to the fragile concept of belonging: what can you keep from a place that you risk losing forever? Mkrtumyan again works in metaphors here, connecting little natural wonders scattered around a village in Artsakh, with her grandmothers’ anguish, who had to mull over which photographs to bring with her when she was forced out of her family home. “During the blockade of Artsakh,” the director remembers, “I was feeling very useless. So, at some point I started recording the video calls I had with my grandmother. I never rewatched them, but some of these recordings fitted so well in what I was trying to say with the film that they had to become a part of it.”