The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse (Mayak, 2006) is an Armenian-Russian war drama you can watch online on iFILM. Lena travels back from Moscow to the mountain village where she grew up — now worn down by a war creeping ever closer.

She has come for her grandparents, hoping to talk them into leaving for safety. But the house and the land hold on tighter than fear: the old couple won't abandon the place that held their whole lives, even as shells fall nearby and neighbours go one by one. There's little conventional plot here — instead a slow, intimate farewell to a vanishing world, shot like a drift of memory. The cast includes Sos Sargsyan and Sofiko Chiaureli, giants of Armenian and Georgian cinema.

Maria Saakyan's feature debut drew festival notice for its poetic, almost plotless register. Stream The Lighthouse online on iFILM.