Shooting through tragedy: Shoghakat Vardanyan on 1489

One of the most remarkable debut films of recent years is 1489 by the Armenian artist Shoghakat Vardanyan, which won the top prize at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2023. In 2020, just before completing his military service, Vardanyan’s 21-year-old brother Soghomon was sent to the frontline of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Artsakh. After he went missing a few days later, Vardanyan, who had no prior filmmaking experience, picked up her phone, and started recording herself and her parents as they began a gruelling quest for any information about the missing son and brother.

She would go on shooting like this for two years. The resulting film is an intimate, devastating portrait of family grief and resilience, as well as a document of a young woman learning to express herself through film in real time. 1489 is screening at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on Saturday 7 December as part of the inaugural London Armenian Film Festival. Ahead of that screening, host Sam Goff spoke with Shoghakat about the emotional experience of making the film and becoming a celebrated director by accident.

Get tickets for the London screening of 1489 here.

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Intro music by Juliet Merchant.