Birthday Candles (2026)

When autumn 2020 drew him to the front lines of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war as a volunteer fighter, Kamran Baxşizadə never expected his own birthday to mark the moment he permanently lost his vision. Severed from sight during active combat, he returned to a familiar environment that had suddenly transformed into an unfamiliar landscape of sound and memory. This intimate documentary bypasses the headlines, picking up the thread of his quiet homecoming and tracking his struggle to rebuild spatial awareness, daily habits, and a renewed sense of purpose from scratch. Rather than highlighting battlefield triumphs, the lens stays anchored in mundane routines that quietly measure his psychological resilience and physical grit. Through an unpolished, day-to-day perspective, the picture demonstrates how steady optimism and fierce determination slowly construct a sustainable future when every obvious path forward appears completely closed off.