In the Land of Arto

In the Land of Arto / Le Pays d’Arto

Tamara Stepanyan, France, Armenia, 2025, 104’ 

After her husband dies, Céline travels to his hometown in Armenia, in the heart of a country plagued by constant armed conflict, where she is confronted with his secrets and the ghosts of past wars. 

Céline arrives in Armenia for the first time to legalize the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he lied to her: he fought in the war, stole another identity, and his former friends consider him a deserter. A new journey begins for Céline as she encounters Arto’s past, meeting people disabled by the battles of 2020, veterans of the victorious battles of the 90s, hauntings from a war that never ends. A woman chases a ghost, but how do you bury it? Can the dead be saved? 

“When you make a documentary, you spend a lot of time with people; watching them, listening to them, sometimes for several years. You parachute into their existence, and when you leave, whatever you filmed affects their lives as well as yours. Everyone I met helped me flesh out my fictional characters, but most of all, they changed the way I look at other human beings, their gestures, and their way of moving through the world. I think the way I film Armenian landscapes is also influenced by the time I spent studying them and filming them for my documentaries. I try to pay attention to what makes them unique, and instead of treating them like postcards, I consider that their specific colors and atmosphere deeply affect the film. /…/ It was important to me, as a person with three nationalities (Armenian, Lebanese, French), to show people my homeland through the eyes of a French woman. Celine is the bridge between my two countries. She is the one who makes this dialogue possible.” – Tamara Stepanyan 

Tamara Stepanyan was born in Armenia, moved to Lebanon in the early 1990s and continued her studies at the National Film School of Denmark. She now lives in France and is with her documentary opus and her first fiction film considered to be the new voice of contemporary Armenian cinema.  

The conversation with Tamara Stepanyan is cancelled, you can catch her at the My Armenian Phantoms screening.