“All I Need,” a short film rooted in Armenian ancestral memory, has faced repeated censorship efforts at international festivals — pressure its creators say is tied to coordinated diplomatic intervention by Azerbaijan.
The 11-minute film was created by three sisters — Katia Spivakova Saakiants, Anna Kova and Tatiana — who grew up in Europe but have long felt a profound pull toward their Armenian heritage. Drawing from family archives, they tell the true story of their great-great-grandfather from Shushi, using one family’s experience to illuminate the broader trauma endured by Armenians from Artsakh.
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That Armenian documentaries or films are censored or pulled out from film festivals, due to Azerbaijan’s pressure, for “portraying Azerbaijan negatively”(!), is outrageous and shameful, but not surprising.
This happened before in Jordan last year, when a Jordanian documentary about Artsakh called “My Sweet Land”, was pulled out by the Jordanian Royal Film Commission from its submission to the 2025 Oscars “due to diplomatic pressure”.
Azerbaijan may very likely have employed its “Caviar Diplomacy” lobbying strategy with the countries involved.
This “Caviar Diplomacy” of Azerbaijan consists of expensive invitations and gifts to foreign politicians, key people of international organizations, CEOs of foreign companies and foreign businessmen with ties to their countries’ leadership, at Azerbaijani expense. In other words: state-sponsored bribery by Azerbaijan, in return for political, strategic and economic gains for Azerbaijan by these foreign interests.
The Azerbaijani regime has employed this lobbying strategy throughout the world, especially in Europe, in the United States, in the Arab World and in the wider Muslim World, and always at the expense of Armenia’s interests, which is one of Azerbaijan’s main aims, and often with successful results.
Foreign policy and economic interests, have always been guided by Machiavellianism, long before this term existed, while many countries’ today, especially the Western countries, shamelessly and hypocritically pretend to uphold and claim to be guided by democracy, human rights and justice. In this unjust world, it is the rich and powerful who hold the sway and call the shots.
That is why, even documetaries and films about Artsakh or the Armenian Genocide, are affected by Azerbaijan’s “Caviar Diplomacy”.
When the dictatorship of this terrorist Azerbaijani cesspool gets involved in such matters, rest-assured they are alarmed and do not want the public to see them for who they actually are. They prefer to portray themselves to the world in positive light using bribery and blackmail instead. Bribery is a national pastime for these unscrupulous scoundrels. This is nothing new and should not come as a surprise. What is alarming, but not surprising, is the hypocrisy of the decision makers involved to bend to the will of this terrorist dictatorship.