Photo by Sareen Hairabedian
Vrej in My Sweet Land (2024)
In 1991, as the Soviet Union dissolved, a province in the Caucasus Mountains called Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh), declared independence. Although Armenians were Artsakh’s indigenous people, neighboring Azerbaijan, also newly independent, laid claims on the land. The Azeris attacked and were defeated in 1994. The peace that followed was never less than uneasy. The Azeris attacked again in 2020, and the ceasefire didn’t hold for long. In 2023 Azerbaijan launched a fatal assault, occupying Artsakh and driving out the surviving 100,000 residents who became refugees in the nearby Republic of Armenia.
The documentary My Sweet Land relates part of Artsakh’s story. Director Sareen Hairabedian immersed herself in the life of a particular family, focusing on a boy, Vrej. He’s probably 10 years old when the film begins in 2018, dreaming of becoming a dentist and thoroughly engaged with the history of the region where he lives. Vrej can recite the names of ancient heroes by heart, and knows that in earlier epochs, elephants played the role of tanks.
Rumors and expectations of war were present throughout Vrej’s childhood. Artsakh sits in a dangerous region, contested for many centuries, wedged between Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia, with Russia looming over the horizon. Artsakh was a republic with a flag and an army but no diplomatic recognition. Although Hairabedian supplies relatively little information, much of the geopolitical context can be gleaned through Vrej’s eyes. In a classroom scene, the teacher points to a world map and emphasizes that political boundaries can change, mentioning “unresolved territorial issues” and insisting that there are “countries that have not been recognized yet.” Prove to me that Artsakh is a country, she asks Vrej. “We exist. We live here,” he replies.
Vrej lives in a farming village in grassy fields surrounded by mountains. Sheep graze nearby, a cow gives milk, the family wrestle beans and other vegetables from the land. They keep beehives. No one in the village is affluent but every family has a car, a TV and a cellphone. Life is good if uneasy—until the 2020 war sends the family fleeing in a convoy for the Republic of Armenia where they find refuge until Russian “peacekeepers” restore a semblance of order. They return to a half-ruined village. The beehives are intact, and their house still stands, but Vrej’s teacher gives lessons in identifying unexploded ordinance. The fields might harbor landmines.
Scenes from the family’s brief homecoming will remind viewers of the news from Ukraine and the West Bank. Sometimes the Azeris cut electric power, sometimes they blockade deliveries of food and fuel. Shooting and intimidation seldom cease. This country was not a political abstraction to Artsakh’s people, but a sacred land inherited from their ancestors. Many maintain stubborn defiance against high odds, but fatalism infects even the children.
In the closing scene, Vrej compares his situation to a movie, and predicts the final episode. In war movies, he says, “the main hero dies in the end.”
7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, UWM Union Cinema, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd., 2nd Floor. The film's director, Sareen Hairabedian, will be present for a live Q&A following the conclusion of the film.
