Katsakh | քացախ is the Armenian word for vinegar.

The “Katsakh: Mediterranean Archives” project is a personal collection of non-fiction films shot on Super 8mm and 16mm cameras in towns and villages across the eastern Mediterranean from the 1920s to the 1970s. This collection aims to capture the region’s diverse life and culture, serving as a rich historical archive that invites viewers to connect with our past.

Each film in “Katsakh” represents a fight for memory, preserving moments that might otherwise fade. I hope these films spark new stories and conversations, creating a dialogue between the past and present. They serve as a form of resistance, celebrating life in a world that often erases us. They remind us that memory is crucial to our identity and our journey toward liberation.

For inquiries or further information, please contact us via email at katsakh.project@gmail.com

Katsakh in the press

  • Le Blog du Festival du film franco-arabe: Rencontre avec Chantal Partamian : autour de son projet KATSAKH 2 décembre 2023
  • Al-modon:  ترميم الذاكرة المصوّرة…شانْتال برتميان: أتلفْ أرشيفاً تَمحُ شعباً, زكي محفوض , 2023/06/21
  • Analog Cookbook, University of North Carolina Press, Issue #5, 2022: Analog futures | Katsakh
  • International Association of Armenian Librarians and Archivists — In Focus #13 (2025):Invited presentation and talk, “Katsakh Mediterranean Archives – Lingering Traces: Collecting Absence in Family Films and Travelogues,” featuring Chantal Partamian. - Oct. 18th 2025
  • The Deutsche Kinemathek “Film Restored” : A curated program by Germany’s national film archive presenting newly restored films, highlighting archival preservation, historical context, and contemporary access to film heritage. Oct. 2025
  • Rumman Music Festival Cineconcert (With Ghassan Sahhab and Fadi Tabbal) – Sept. 2025
  • CRIalt - Centre de recherches intermédiales sur les arts, les lettres et les techniques : Les archives visuelles de la Méditerranée – Présentation du projet KATSAKH - 2025
  • Aflam Festival - Vives Archives: Katsakh: Mediterranean Archives, Le Polygone Étoilé, Marseille. Avril, 2025.
  • Home Movie Day - Paris: Ciné Concert.  La 10e édition du Home Movie Day Paris aura lieu le samedi 12 octobre à la Générale. Apportez vos films pour l’Open Screen et découvrez des images d’archives précieuses autour de l’Algérie, la Palestine, le Liban, l’Italie, l’Egypte, la Jordanie
  • Symposium XP - symposium sur le cinéma expérimental- Montréal - Journal d’une occupation : films et images tournées en Palestine (1920-2024). Performance musicale live de Sam Shalabi accompagnée d’images d’archives de la collection ‘Katsakh’ tournées en Palestine, Liban Sud, Jordanie (1920-2011).
  • Radical film Network - Madrid Espagne: Katsakh: In search of mediterranean archives, Juin 2024
  • Festival du film franco-arabe de Noisy-le-Sec Samedi 25 novembre 2023 Projection de films de famille 8 et 16 mm numérisés et assemblés par Chantal Partamian, accompagnés musicalement au oud par le soliste Damien Sarret
  • Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery: Mediterranean Explorations: Evolving archives and varied perspectives
  • Lebanese film festival Canada, Katsakh: Reconstruction d’une mémoire imagée.   Juin 2023
  • Réactualiser les archives pour une histoire au présent, Festival Aflam, Marseille, 2022
  • European Media Art Festival № 34 - 21/04 -02/05 - Osnabrueck - Germany Artist and curator Nour Ouayda (Beirut) presents a series on the history and present of video art in Lebanon. In Show Us the Money and We Will Resist, she traces the role that the resources and networks of Lebanese television played in the development of video art in the 1990s, and what new media infrastructures have taken their place to enable both artistic experimentation and intervention in society.
  • International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2021 Under the title “Prophecies from the Sea”, the curators are showing a programme “about the prophetic nature of cinematic works created in moments of transition”. This includes both recent films that deal directly with the catastrophic explosion in Beirut a year ago, its causes and consequences, and older works that focus on earlier historical upheavals in Lebanon and its conflict-ridden history. Films by Chantal Partamian, Ali Cherri, the Atlas Group and Ghassan Salhab, among others, will be screened.