On 1 October, he called his mother for the last time. After that he disappeared. Vardanyan spent the next two weeks fruitlessly attempting to locate her brother before deciding to film the experience and document the new reality in which she and her parents found themselves.
The result is Vardanyan’s documentary debut, 1489 — the number assigned to the bag with Soghomon’s remains — which won two awards including best film at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November.
Vardanyan meticulously documents her parents’ agonising wait for news while also recording her own attempts to navigate an unbearable situation. Sadly, the only glimpse the viewer ever has of Soghomon is in archival footage. The news of Soghomon’s death comes as a gut punch, and for a few minutes, both parents really do seem to go mad with grief as their daughter, camera in hand, attempts to guide them back to reality. The film doesn’t shy away from family’s inconceivable pain and shows each stage of human grief — hope, bargaining, anger, acceptance — with an unflinching gaze.
A personal, local story becomes a universal one as Vardanyan’s footage shows the other families experiencing the loss of loved ones in war. While 1489 dispenses with slogans, it is an emphatic anti-war statement. Ksenia Gapchenko spoke to Vardanyan about her film’s success and how making it affected both her and her family.