This 15-minute hybrid non-fiction/experimental documentary essay blends Lida Mkrtchan’s voiceover testimony about her time in bomb shelters in Shushi (Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh) with a layered audiovisual landscape. The film moves between tactile close-ups of the narrator’s hands preparing zhengyalov bread and staged studio compositions in which objects, textures and performative gestures metaphorically reimagine the narrated events and inner states through dark video tableaux. The interplay of documentary and poetic imagery illustrates the resilience of the community under siege, the rhythm of daily life and the quiet actions that sustain hope. Moments of beauty, ritual and shared labour coexist alongside stark reflections on war, loss and displacement, and metaphorical sequences that evoke tension, fear and collective memory. The intertitles at the end provide historical context on the war in Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh and are dedicated to the women whose stories shaped the film. By layering testimony, crafted imagery, and performative gestures, the film creates an essayistic meditation on survival, memory, and the endurance of community amidst conflict, culminating poetically and conceptually in a final sequence, synthesizing the themes of memory, resilience, and lived trauma.
