- 8min 23sec, Lebanon & Canada, 2021
- Smartphone, DSLR & Found Footage
- Armenian audio, English & French subtitles
Description
In 1939, following an agreement signed by France, the Alexandretta Sandjak in Syria was annexed to Turkey. Thousands of Armenians, including my grandmother, flee Alexandretta for Aleppo or Beirut. In the fall of 1939, a small number moved inland to an already established “quarantine” zone near Burj Hammoud, which at the time was farmland. The camp takes the name of their homeland, Sandjak. Navigating three types of images, shot in three different periods, the film explores the poetics of haunting through compositions of images that attempt to create an entanglement between the past and the present. An intimate but detached voice, a little stoic even, speaking of countless losses. The repeated affirmation of belonging to a place that is no longer. It is an exercise in the dismantlement of the Sandjak camp space. The haunting of the present by absences. The fragmentation of history and memory. The experience in the margins and the historical anachronism of a people evolving in temporal landscape.
Historical Context
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the camp gradually expanded and its population diversified. The increasing urbanization of cities in Lebanon has led to the eradication of the camp. The Armenian diaspora in Lebanon has made no significant attempt to prevent the destruction of the camp or to understand or eradicate the material and social conditions that have ensured that a camp persists for at least 60 years. Families in the camp reported receiving between $3,000 and $5,000 compensation from the municipality.
Screenings
2025
- Liban: Face à face | Paris, France
- Buried Memories and Tangled Roots (Curated by Ultradogme) | Istanbul, Turkey
- Mirofolies Festival (Curated by Festival du Film Franco-Arabe) | Noisy-le-Sec, France
- Licht Kunst Festival Lüdenscheid | Heidenheim, Germany
2023
- Grande Rencontre des Arts Médiatiques | Gaspésie, Canada
- KASK Cinema Activities, Tashattot Collective | Gent, Belgium
- 15e Édition, Elles Tournent: Brussels Women’s Film Festival | Brussels, Belgium
2022
- Middle East Studies Association FilmFest | Denver, Colorado
- Pomegranate Film Festival | Toronto, Canada
- Toronto Arab Film Festival | Toronto, Canada
- 9e édition du Festival Aflam | Marseille, France
- Burnt Video Art and Experimental Film Festival | Montreal, Canada
- Alexandria International Short Film Festival | Alexandria, Egypt
2021
- Lebanese Film Festival in Canada | Halifax, Canada
- One Shot Film Festival, 19th Edition | Yerevan, Armenia
- Lebanese Film Festival in Canada | Montreal, Canada
- Écrans du Réel Documentary Film Festival | Beirut, Lebanon
Distributor
Press
La réalisatrice libanaise d’origine arménienne Chantal Partamian avoue qu’elle est autant intéressée par les archives que par leur absence. «En partant à la recherche d’images sur le Liban, j’ai re-trouvé un récit uniformisé, un mythe fondateur du Liban néolibéral des années 1960, qui ne concernait qu’une minorité de Beyrouthin·es. Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est ce qui est omis: qu’est-ce qui n’est pas filmé et pourquoi? Que dit ce silence et cette marginalisation?» Dans le court métrage Sandjak, elle enregistre les derniers instants d’un camp de réfugiés arméniens situé depuis six décennies en plein cœur de la capitale libanaise, avant sa destruction en 2016. Confronté à des archives de ce lieu insalubre jadis habité et au témoignage de sa grand-mère arménienne, l’endroit apparaît d’autant plus fantomatique et abandonné. C’est dans cet espace labyrinthique, dont l’image n’a pas été jugée suffisamment légitime pour être conservée, que Chantal Partamian cherche des réponses sur ses origines: «Durant le confinement, j’ai ressenti le besoin de retrouver mon histoire arménienne, qui est perdue à cause du silence des premières générations ayant survécu au génocide. Ce sont les troisième et quatrième générations qui essaient de retrouver ce lien.» Memoire du Cinema Arabe, Emmanuel Haddad, Le courrier, N°61, Vendredi 1er au Dimanche 3 Avril, 2022.
Projected in this selection with Aprahamian’s work is Chantal Partamian’s nine-minute work, “Sandjak,” 2021. The two films are coincidentally complementary, insofar as Partamian is interested in the history of Bourj Hammoud’s Sanjak refugee camp. Founded in 1939, it received a number of Armenian families fleeing Iskanderun (aka Alexandretta), which had been part of France’s Syrian mandate until Paris ceded the territory to the Turkish republic. The camp was razed in 2017. Relying on the voice of a lone survivor of the flight from Iskanderun who grew up in Sanjak, Partamian compiles a diverse collage of recent and historical footage to accompany and illustrate her character’s recollections. Short films on a shifting landscape Jim Quilty, The Daily Star, Jul. 01, 2021.
Energy moves through landscapes, bodies, and histories—shaping, erasing, and renewing our environment. The selected films engage with energy as a natural force, a site of displacement, and a memory embedded in urban space. Every film reflects on cycles of destruction and regeneration, inviting us to reconsider our connection to the environment, history, and the shifting geographies we live in. Together, they all form an interconnected dialogue about energy as both a force of continuity and rupture. In Sandjak, energy is traced through forced migration, mapping the journey of Armenians fleeing the annexation of Alexandretta in 1939. The film reveals how movement, loss, and adaptation shape the resilience of displaced communities. The past lingers like an afterimage, resonating with contemporary histories of exile and the urgent need for collective responsibility in times of crisis. Echoes of Energy: Transformation, Memory, and Resistance Short Film Program from the Olhares do Mediterrâneo, Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou.