Shoghakat Vardanyan’s ‘1489’ wins Best Film at International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam

Shoghakat Vardanyan’s ‘1489’, about the disappearance of her brother, has won the IDFA Award for Best Film in Amsterdam, Karen Avetisyan, the artistic director of the Golden Apricot Film Festival of Armenia, announced on his Facebook page.

“A film that acts as a piercing light that makes visible the vast hidden interior landscape of grief and creates a tangible presence from unbearable absence. Cinema as a tool of survival—to allow us all, to look at the things we would rather not see. And ultimately, an unforgettable example of cinema as an act of love,” the jury of the festival noted.

The film revolves around the disappearance of the director’s 21-year-old brother, Soghomon Vardanyan, who went missing in the early days of the 44-day war in 2020.

Using her phone camera, his sister Shoghakat decides to film her and her parents’ search and their emotional process. After six months, bones are found, but DNA research is needed to show whether the remains are actually those of Soghomon, and the family will have to wait a year and a half for the results.