Kanants Gyughe
Village of Women
Tamara Stepanyan / Armenia, France / 2019 / 83 min / Colour
Italian premiere
There is a village without men, in the mountains of Armenia. In Lichk, for nine months every year, fathers and husbands leave their families and depart for Russia in search of work. They will not return before winter, while their wives, left alone, cultivate the land, raise livestock, and bring up children. The only possible contacts are a few short calls from the land of the Tsars. Tamara Stepanyan, after a long process of approaching the community, decided to film the life of the village throughout the four seasons that mark everyone's work and life. By forging deep ties with the women of Lichk, during the year necessary to shoot, the director was able to share a daily life of fatigue and waiting, hosted in the house of the protagonist, Anush. This circumstance and intimacy of vision preserves the lucidity of a portrait of absence and the need to gather, even for a few weeks, on the shores of Lake Sevan.
Tamara Stepanyan
Tamara Stepanyan is a director, screenwriter and director of photography. Born in Armenia and trained in Lebanon in film direction, she made her debut in 2010 directing her first short film, Little Stones. Her documentary Embers (2012) won an award at the Busan International Film Festival.
Credits
Subject Tamara StepanyanScreenplay Tamara StepanyanCinematography Tamara Stepanyan, Robin FressonSound Harutyun Mangasaryan, Tamara StepanyanEditing Olivier FerrariProduction company La Huit