ԹԵՒԱՎՈՐ ԼԱՐԵՐ | FIBERS
Short film by Anna Grigorian
Country: Armenia
Year: 2025
Duration: 15 min.
VO: Armenian
ST: English, French, Spanish
Support acknowledgement:
Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory (Armenia)
Canada Council for the Arts (Canada)
Distribution: Groupe Intervention Vidéo
Available screening formats:
DCP, ProRes, other formats upon request.
ԹԵՒԱՎՈՐ ԼԱՐԵՐ | FIBERS is based on personal accounts of women after the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war. The film highlights a brief moment that took place in one of the bomb shelters of Artsakh in 2020 .
Director’s biography
Anna Grigorian is an artist and filmmaker from Armenia, whose art practice is currently based between Armenia and Canada. Mixing elements of theater, early cinema, and constructed surreal environments, her films revolve around socio political and economic problems, and examination of power relations.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
Full credits: Making zhengyalov bread – Lida Mkrtchyan | Voice – Lida Mkrtchyan (herself), Silva Khnkanosyan (herself) | Mentioned in the film: Shushi, Stepanakert – cities in Artsakh, (Nagorno-Karabakh), Goris, Yerevan – cities in Armenia ; zhengyalov bread – a flatbread stuffed with a variety of greens, traditional to Syunik, Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) | Special thanks to Susanna Gyulamiryan, Arsen Abrahamyan, Shushanna Tevanyan, CSN Lab | Armenian speech to text transcription – Armen Ohanyan | Armenian to French translation – Raffi Yeretsian | Armenian to English translation – Anna Grigorian | English proofreading – Ashod Nakashian | Concept, footage, montage, sound design – Anna Grigorian
Director’s statement
Work on this film started in the summer of 2023 in Armenia when I began recording the personal accounts of women affected by the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war in 2020. Even though the initial intention was to create a record of “women’s struggles in post-war life,” the reality I was facing was far from being post-war. The war did not end with the ceasefire agreement, it simply changed forms: at that time, Azerbaijan had been keeping Artsakh under complete blockade which lasted more than 9 months. The continued military aggression after the war and the 9-month blockade of Artsakh were followed by another full-scale military attack by Azerbaijan, leading to the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh (their ancestral lands) in the autumn of 2023.
Dealing with a delicate topic of trauma suffered by the people uprooted from their ancestral lands, ԹԵՒԱՎՈՐ ԼԱՐԵՐ | FIBERS highlights a brief moment that took place in one of the bomb shelters of Artsakh in 2020. The film speaks about the courage of finding strength during dark times, the communal resilience, the daily care for the community that is traditionally on the women’s shoulders and continues even under bombardment.
Informed and affected by some 18 personal accounts recorded in the summer of 2023, the film’s voiceover is mainly composed of excerpts from the personal account of Lida Mkrtchyan and ends with words from Silva Khnkanosyan.
HIGH RESOLUTION STILLS
