1489

Winner - IDFA Award for Best Film - International Competition
Winner - FIPRESCI Award

My younger brother Soghomon, a musician, had been fulfilling his mandatory military service when the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War ensued on Sept. 27, 2020. He disappeared in the war zone without a trace on the seventh day. I had never studied filmmaking but the emotions overwhelming my family made me grab my phone and document our daily ordeal. We were just waiting for my brother, I had not planned to make a film. Hope and despair alternated over the 44 days of the War. I filmed my family for another 2 years, as we searched, waited and wavered. Soghomon’s remains were coded 1489 – “Body of individual missing in action.” Although bitter, this number provided closure, which many families still lack.