French-Armenian film director Arno Kayajanian’s documentary film “Us and Our Mountains” presents Artsakh, a not too well-known land in the mountains of the Caucasus that continues to fight for its independence. Through a slide show of portraits, the film director discovers those who shape the daily life of the people of this land during their search for freedom.

The film is included in the Armenian Panorama section of the Golden Apricot International Film Festival, and the film director talked about the film during a July 10 press conference.

“A couple of months after the Four-Day Artsakh War that took place in April 2016, I traveled to Artsakh and was surprised by the atmosphere in which the people were living. The people of Artsakh are strong, powerful and virtuous.

Since Frenchmen know Artsakh as the focal point of political conflicts, I tried to show the other side of Artsakh, that is, the people’s daily lives and the role of women in Artsakh,” Kayajanian noted, according to Armenpress.

According to him, the film has been screened several times in French cities, but there are cities that refuse to host screenings due to political reasons.

In 2012, Arno Kayajanian shot the short film “Lost Horizons”, which has been shown at 22 international film festivals and has won an award for best performance in Miluse and best film at Fantasia International Film Festival. In 2014, Kayajanian turned Lora Depren’s French play into a short film called “The Bad Girl”, which has been shown at 23 international film festivals and won the awards of Vimeo and the jury at the Sundance TV channel competition. In 2015, inspired by the story of his Armenian ancestors, Kayajanian presented the documentary film “Rocky Roads”, which was appreciated by French critics and shown at 24 international film festivals. It won the award of the jury of the international film festival in Ismailia (Egypt) and was recognized as best documentary film at the film festival. In 2017, ARTE TV broadcast Kayajanian’s new film “Deaf Hearts”.