★★★★☆
Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi’s debut documentary explores the effects of state and familial conflict in the search for an elusive butterfly.
Effendi’s father — the esteemed lepidopterist Rustam Effendi — died in 1991 amidst the break-up of the Soviet Union; Rena Effendi was only 14-years-old at the time.
‘When people ask me: “Out of all the people in the world, who would you have liked to meet?”, I often think I’d have liked to meet him, as I often think I haven’t met him’, Effendi says.
Her debut documentary Searching for Satyrus is an attempt to do just that, to capture her father’s essence and truly get to know him as a person, as much as one can, all via a broader hunt to find the elusive butterfly named after him.
The Satyrus effendi only flies from mid-July to mid-August in a range of 2500–3000 metres above sea level — only around five people have ever caught it. Closed borders and ethnic enmities have not made this task any easier.
Effendi’s quest soon becomes tied to the ongoing Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict, namely because the Satyrus effendi is only found in the sub-alpine grasslands of the southern Zangezur Mountains, which straddle the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s exclave Nakhchivan. While her father would have travelled by train across the Soviet Union, Effendi is forced to seek special permission from the authorities to even travel to Armenia, as well as access sensitive areas such as military border zones.
This context becomes a crucial aspect of the film, with Effendi taking great care to reveal all sides, from speaking to Azerbaijani IDPs living in poverty in Baku to hearing from a former Armenian soldier visiting his deceased comrades in Yerevan’s Yerablur Military Memorial Cemetery.
While in Armenia, she also reconnects with her father’s old colleague, Pavlik Kazaryan, who, despite being a Baku native like Effendi, had fled to Armenia in the 1990s due to his ethnic Armenian identity. Today, he lives in what his friends term a ‘dog-house’ — the only housing the government saw fit to provide him.
It is through her visit with him that Effendi begins to understand the complexities of her father’s family life — indeed, while Kazaryan saw one of Effendi’s half-sisters grow up before his eyes, he had never known Effendi existed until she came to visit decades later.
Searching for Satyrus is a bit of a meandering film due to its multiple focuses — scenes often switch back-and-forth between familial interviews about Rustam Effendi and separate journeys and discussions related to the Satyrus effendi butterfly — yet when viewed in its entirety, it somehow clicks to become a true work of art.
This is helped by the fact that, as might be expected from a photographer-turned-director, the film is visually engaging. Not only is the cinematography, with its warm tones and more languid movement, appealing, Effendi ensures it becomes a tool by which to hint at some of the broader political contexts operating beneath the surface.
This is most apparent though the visual contrasts highlighted in Azerbaijan, such as the decaying homes of the Azerbaijani IDPs are shown against the backdrop of the capital’s sparkling, rich new architecture, or when the same effects of oil wealth are contrasted with the crumbling Society for Zoology building, pointedly emphasising where the state’s priorities lie.
Effendi clearly also sees her film as a way to explore the possibilities of creating unity in a region long-divided by violence and the trauma of conflict. Indeed, the power of nature and the environment to reassert itself is a key aspect in the documentary, hinting at a way to transcend traditional animosities.
Searching for Satyrus premiered in July 2025, a month before the US-brokered summit in Washington, which saw Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev initial a peace agreement. Perhaps in a few years, Effendi may be able to take another journey, this time truly following her father’s footsteps, travelling by train across open borders amidst societies newly tied together after 30 years of conflict.
Film details: Searching for Satyrus (2025), directed by Rena Effendi. The film is currently still on the festival circuit.
