Mayak (2006)

Maria Saakyan's elegiac, semi-autobiographical slice-of-life drama The Lighthouse unfolds against the backdrop of the Caucasus wars that plagued Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. As the scope of this mass-scaled conflict extends itself to one woman's small village, she is forced to drop everything, move to Moscow, and start over from scratch - thus bidding farewell to her hometown and way of life, perhaps indefinitely. After spending several years in Moscow, Lena decides to return home, to the small Caucasus village where she was born and where her relatives and friends still live. The war and misery of the region are a counterpoint to the memories and emotions that bind Lena to her roots. Will she stay or flee?



This is a personal story not just for me but it is a story which has been part of the autobiography of many people of our generation.
This is a personal story also for our screenwriter, who is Georgian, for our set-designer, who is from Serbia. We were all forced to leave our home countries because of local wars. And this very strong desire to return, to come back home to the country you were forced to leave, brings us to this film. Finally, it’s not only in the film – for example, my own wish finally came true. After The Lighthouse was released I, just as my protagonist does in the film, was also finally able to return home and live in my home country Armenia - even if now that decision looks to other people pretty absurd.

For us, it was more important to try to reflect the personal truth about these “1990’s local wars”. We tried to make a film not only about the Nagorno-Karabakh war or the Georgian war – but one which could be understood globally.

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