A Passage
16:57, 2K Video
Single Channel
2019
Film Festivals
Screening Rights Film Festival of Social Justice, 2024
Prix George for the Best Documentary Form at the 24th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, 2020
Moscow International Experimental Film Festival, 2020
Kyiv International Short Film Festival, 2020
Doclisboa International Film Festival, 2019
Aesthetica International Film Festival, 2019
Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, 2019
Reviews:
A Passage Trailer
“…a film whose artistic rigour is not overshadowed by its political urgency –despite the latter growing day by day. This film builds on the legacy of poetic cinema to amplify its political message about borders, capital flows, and militarism in the present-day Southern Caucasus –a message that is just as timely in any other part of the world.”
- Jury for Prix George for the Best Documentary, 24th Internationale Kurtzfilmtage Winterthur, 2020
A Passage
Hay Art Cultural Center
Yerevan, Armenia
May 15-21, 2018
‘A Passage’ is a video and installation project produced in Agarak and Meghri. The project tackles the political economy and social ecology of border infrastructures in Southern Armenia. By focusing on two significant events that illustrate the dominant political shifts in the region, ‘A Passage’ looks at how processes of rapid militarization and neoliberalization have restructured these borders. These two events include the recent erasure of the historic Yerevan-Baku Railway; and the upcoming construction of an industrial Free Economic Zone (FEZ) planned precisely where the removed train infrastructure was housed.
The scrapping of the railway symbolizes the socio-political adherence to maintaining strict mobility regimes for citizens, while the introduction of the FEZ signals how capital supersedes these bodily restrictions and borders. The metaphor of ‘wind’ is a recurring thematic framework for examining complex socio-political dynamics in this project.
The two channel video, ‘Make Breeze’, stitches together interior perspectives of Meghri’s abandoned airport with shots depicting two horsemen masked with mirrors enacting a ritual on the runway with windsocks in search of a breeze. The runway and the passenger halls have remained derelict for the past decade; inhabited only by a single security guard and a herd of wild horses who graze in the adjacent mountains. The horsemen’s quest is ultimately disrupted as the wild horses reclaim their space and occupy the main runway.
The thematic carries over in examinations of modes of mobility and obstruction as seen through the evacuated linkages of the discontinued Yerevan-Baku railway. ‘Wait’ takes place in the empty tunnel that bridges the geopolitical boundary of Nakhichevan and Armenia, where the same horsemen ceremonially carry a banner with the ghost train’s image. As the riders proceed along the unlit tunnel, the second channel depicts Agarak’s theater, where the town’s children’s choir announces the major embarkation points on the former railroad.
Facilitator/Fixer: Vahe Sargsyan, Actors: Agarak Children’s Choirs, Vahe Sargsyan and Anush, Producer/Collaborator: Garik Hovhannisyan, Stone Masonary: Arsen Ohanjanyan and Garik Hovhannisyan, Sculptures: Hayk Mnacakanyan, Shahen Shahinyan, and Garik Hovhannisyan, Organizer/Translation: Susanna Gyulamiryan. Special Thanks to Rezvan Dehnavi, Slavik Sargsyan, Eshrat Erfanian and Paula Vool.
A Passage (Video Still), 05:00, 2018
Make Breeze (Video Still), 10:00, 2018
Made possible with the generous support of:
