Non-competition Programs

Documentary World

Don't Leave Without News

Armenia / USA
2005, 18min.

Script/Dir./Dir. of Phot./Edit.: Christine Khalafian, Sound: Christine Khalafyan, Didier Leplae

Shot in modern-day Armenia, Don’t Leave Without News portrays a series of chance encounters based on documentary footage, excerpts from field recordings/interviews and narrative insights given on the way. There are no famous landmarks or distinct ethnic symbols to clue the viewer. Disparate imagery includes Russian children doing cartwheels on a deserted road, men playing soccer in an open field nestled in the mountains, a tightrope walker impressing tourists and two villagers on a pilgrimage to a buried ancient cross stone.

Khalafian, Christine

Christine Khalafian
Filmmaker and editor, Khalafian studies Film at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and is the founder of the Milwaukee Underground FF. She programmed the first North African Arab FF and managed screenings for the Los Angeles Film Forum, as well as the Milwaukee Art Museum. Khalafian is a recipient of the UWM Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship that took her to Armenia where she filmed Don't Leave Without News. Her films have been screened at festivals in North America and Europe, including the Sundance FF, the New York Underground FF, Flaherty Film Seminar and Rotterdam IFF. She works as an editor in Los Angeles.

Filmography
Don't Leave Without News (2005)