My Grandfather’s House

Leylakhanim Ganbarli / Short Documentaries / Azerbaijan / Azerbaijani / 25 min / 2024

7th March 2025 | 1:30 PM | Conference Hall

Eleven years after her grandfather’s death, Azerbaijani filmmaker Leylakhanim Ganbarli embarks on a deeply personal journey to her childhood village of Oglangala. Seeking to reconcile with her grief, she returns to the house where her happiest memories were made, hoping to bid a final farewell to the man she had idolised as a child. By her side is her grandmother Zahra, a woman, whose vivid and unfiltered recollections challenge Leylakhanim’s perception of her beloved grandfather.

As Zahra shares stories of her life with him, a multilayered portrait of the man emerges. Her anecdotes shift between love and frustration, joy and pain. “A smart woman can tolerate many things—poverty, beatings, curses. But infidelity… that is harder to bear,” Zahra confides, revealing the quiet sacrifices and compromises she endured in their marriage. For Leylakhanim, the journey becomes more than a tribute; it transforms into an exploration of how the stories we inherit are shaped by love, loss, and the complexities of human relationships.

The documentary alternates family footage from the 1990s with current footage, solidifying the bond between past and present that can only exist thanks to family love, and marking a new phase in the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter.