Hadamo

There is a village without men, in the mountains of Armenia. In Lichk, for nine months every year, fathers and husbands leave their families and depart for Russia in search of work. They will not return before winter, while their wives, left alone, cultivate the land, raise livestock, and bring up children. The only possible contacts are a few short calls from the land of the Tsars. Tamara Stepanyan, after a long process of approaching the community, decided to film the life of the village throughout the four seasons that mark everyone's work and life. By forging deep ties with the women of Lichk, during the year necessary to shoot, the director was able to share a daily life of fatigue and waiting, hosted in the house of the protagonist, Anush. This circumstance and intimacy of vision preserves the lucidity of a portrait of absence and the need to gather, even for a few weeks, on the shores of Lake Sevan.