SPACES AND PLACES: a season of recently restored classics and award-winning contemporary films from Armenia.
From 10 May 2022 until 9 June 2022, the Armenian Institute in partnership with, Klassiki, the world’s first streaming platform dedicated to cinema from Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, will host SPACES AND PLACES, an in-cinema and online film season exploring the contested politics of place and Armenian identity. The films in this season all explore the idea of home – whether that be a place, an idea, or something in-between. They speak to the past and present of Armenia, marked so much by displacement and diaspora: ideas that are sadly as relevant now for international audiences as ever before.
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Garegin Papoyan captures the absurd ironies of a community defined by frozen military conflict in this wry observational documentary. Fully equipped to accommodate civilian flights, the recently rebuilt Stepanakert Airport in the break-away Republic of Artsakh does not operate due to the permanent threat of missile strikes. Unwilling to risk any lives, the airport, nevertheless, remains “open”. The dreary ritual of keeping the standby facility operational turns the workers into a closely-knit family unit, where each individual lives out their personal dreams while continuing to hope for the basic freedoms to cross borders and receive guests.
Screening Tuesday 31 May at the Ciné Lumière, London.
Tickets available here: https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/special-screenings/bon-voyage/
Supported by National Heritage Lottery Fund