Alain Delange (Grégoire Colin) is a French airport auditor assigned to make sure the airport of Artsakh Republic conforms to international standards before opening. It had been shot down due to a conflict with its neighboring countries and the hostility between them continues to exist.
“In the film the airport embodies the hope for recognition and is the symbol of a country that dreams to fly but is not allowed to do so,” says director Nora Martirosyan about the significance of the Stepanakert Airport in her film Should the Wind Drop.
“We arrive at the airport, which is at the heart of the film, together with Alain, by the only existing road. The airport waits desperately for the planes to return. But in the current complex geopolitical context, it is clear that no plane will ever be able to land.”
The Republic of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, where the film is set, really exists, as a self-proclaimed republic in the Caucasus, caught between the strategic interests of Russia and Turkey.
“Nothing is certain in this strange place,” says Nora Martirosyan. “The very existence of this country is constantly called into question even though they have a population, a capital, a constitution, an administration, an economy, everything that goes to make up a nation. It is an ‘illegal’ country seeking recognition through the opening of its international airport. Making a film in this place, giving to this country an existence through cinema, was a great challenge for me: political, ethical and esthetic.”
Nora Martirosvan co-wrote Should the Wind Drop with Olivier Torres, Guillaume André and novelist Emmanuelle Pagano. They created a 10-year old character named Edgar (Hayk Bakhryan), who is constantly hustling and sells water to everyone. He is indifferent to the limitations created for him and gladly cuts across the airport fields to save himself some travel time.


“The aspect of this film’s universe that I find most moving is the power of fiction for the inhabitants of this country: the stories they tell one another and with which they resist a reality that is oppressive, possibilities that are too narrow, rules that are too strict. Edgar through his magical business is enchanting the reality, creating wider, more unpredictable, more open possibilities. Today, in our societies, this enchantment seems sorely needed.”
Martirosyan is an Armenian filmmaker from Erevan, who has lived in France for many years. She has directed several award-winning short films and her first feature film Should the Wind Drop takes the filmmaker back to the region where she grew up.
“I am particularly attached to this amazing place: so modern if you look at its buildings, cars, and population, and yet so ancient with its hills and mountains that have been observing human activity for millennia,” she says.
“I hope that through my film’s images, through its characters – realistic, simple and moving at the same time – the country will begin to exist, maybe not politically, but cinematographically. Since the last war erupted in September 2020 and the defeat of the Karabakh army the film has become an archive of 26 years of ceasefire, an undeniable proof of the existence of a country that dreamed of recognition, but which, ignored by the international community, has been deprived of its territories and its hope.”