The Lighthouse

Lena, a young woman from Moscow, returns to the small town in North Armenia where she was born. Then war breaks out. She wants to rescue her grandmother and grandfather from the town, but having arrived at their place she realizes there is no way out; no way back to Moscow. Lodging with her elderly aunt Kasiana (Sofiko Chiaureli, best known for her work with Parajanov), Lena has to learn to live with war.

An intensely poetic film, The Lighthouse was the first feature film to be completed by a woman in Armenia since the inception of their film industry in the early 1920s. A graduate of the prestigious VGIK school in Russia (the Russian State Institute of Cinematography), Armenian-born Saakyan's film wrote history while exploring it. Featuring a multi-ethnic cast and crew, with financing from Russia and the Netherlands, the film remains progressive both in terms of aesthetic and outlook.