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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Gyumri is the second biggest city in Armenia, and within 8 seconds the earthquake kills 30 000 people, sweeping away over twenty kilometers of land. I was born in this dead city that has stopped growing and has remained ever since under the dark shadow of the catastrophe, and in which every newborn child has in some way had to “replace” someone who died. Thirty years after, the post-cataclysmic generation of which I am part of, continuously asks itself the same question: to stay or to leave?

  • Sona Simonyan
    Director
  • Fanny Chrétien
    Producer
  • Julien Chardon
    Editing
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    ՄԵԾ ՍՊԱՍՈՒՄՆԵՐ / DE GRANDS ESPOIRS
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour
  • Completion Date:
    August 15, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Armenia
  • Country of Filming:
    Armenia
  • Language:
    Armenian
  • Shooting Format:
    HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Traces de vies
    Clermont Ferrand
    France
    December 10, 2019
    french
  • Golden Apricot
    Yerevan
    Armenia
    July 10, 2019
  • 2e rencontre du cinéma méditeranéen
    Montpellier
    France
    February 7, 2020
  • BRIDGES. East of West Film Days
    Bruxelles
    Belgium
    January 26, 2020
  • SUDESTIVAL
    Monopoly
    Italy
    March 20, 2020
Director Biography - Sona Simonyan


Sona Simonyan was born in Gyumri, Armenia in 1992. After graduating with a bachelor degree of journalism at Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov, she started her master degree at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), the faculty of journalism, where she won the GIPA DocU Prize for Short Documentary. Just after coming back to Armenia, she has been working as a video editor at "Boon TV", and recently joined Chai-Khana platform as an Armenian video manager.

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Director Statement

1988, although who lives with it until now. As soon as you are born you become a part of all the stories which are told in any occasion remembering the 7th of December. From the very childhood you know that the city is mourning, each family lost a relative, most of the people lost their homes. The stories could be forgotten somehow after 28 years, if the city would be reconstructed. In each step you are facing the evidences of the tragedy: abandoned buildings, ruins, temporary buildings. The city does not simply let anyone forget about that day.

My family didn’t have any human loses, but we have lost our apartment we didn’t have anything, starting from the spoon and finishing will all the necessary things for living. Everytime I listen to my family members, I understand how their lives had changed after the earthquake. You always have the feeling of loss, though you yourself didn’t lose anything. Every Time you start to think that your life would not be the same if not the earthquake, your mother would not spend most of her time working, so that you could have something to eat, but would spend more time with you, would encourage you to go to risks. But no, my generation is the one, who lives with the fears of their parents, that one day we will lose everything as well. When the years were passing, and you were growing up, the feeling of that loss was getting more and more. At one point you realize, that you can’t change anything, you can’t change your parents, you are not the owner of your life, and that’s why, I have left Gyumri for studying in Yerevan 7 years ago and I didn’t come back after graduating. Though with changing the place, I couldn’t change myself, that feelings and fears are following me everywhere. I am all the time going back to my town with warm feelings, but come back as empty as I was before.

The problem of local immigration is very widespread here among the youth. The majority leaves for studying and never comes back. Here in my film I develop two different stories, one about the choice of staying, the other about leaving.