The director shares the same name as her grandmother. After the elder Tamara’s death, the younger Tamara begins to recollect her grandmother’s life. Her grandmother’s favorite perfume, her laughter, her friends next door, a half ripe banana hidden in a closet. The heartwarming memories from a childhood are reconstructed as Stepanyan meets the friends that used to get together once a year with her late grandmother. <Embers> begins with a young Tamara’s desire to know more about her grandmother, but these memories soon become a testament to the vast difference between generations. To her grandmother’s generation, whose youth was a time filled with the hope for the communist movement, the capitalist ideals and independent state of Armenia are something that they were coerced into. Getting to know her grandmother is now something that goes beyond learning the biases forced upon a generation via political and social changes but rather a chance to re-illuminate history. The vintage hues that color the interviews give an impression that we’re watching old portraits in action. (CHO Young-jung)