The Hostage

During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Armenian minority in NagoronoKarabakh attempted to break away from Azerbaijan one of the former Soviet republics Overnight these former neighbors became enemies and simple village folk were suddenly made hostages in a complex power game One of the Azerbaijani villages right on the border is home to the family of the peasant farmer Kerim who has just been captured by the Armenians The village council decides to take an Armenian in order to arrange a hostage exchange They imprison the wounded man in the barn next to Kerims house where his wife and three children desperately await the husbands return The captive from the other side of the border finds himself in exactly the same situation he too has three children he finds it hard to scrape a living together he has never done anything to harm anyone and like Kerim he just wants to go back home But life in Karabakh is far more complex now Blood calls for blood