‘Can we get more comedies?’: Armenian cinema tackles trauma as country debates EU membership – and Trump | film

There is a certain point during Tamara Stepanyan’s My Armenian Ghosts when the documentary cuts to the final scene of the 1980 Soviet film, A Piece of Heaven, in which the main character, an orphan, happily rides a horse and carriage through the town that had long shunned him and the sex worker he married as social outcasts.

A flock of birds is then photographed gliding across the pure blue sky above. It is a sequence that depicts the desire to overcome the forces that seek to limit and restrict that lie at the heart of director Henrique Malian’s new critical wave.

Or as Malian says in an informal interview that forms part of Stepanyan’s archival exploration: “The film is about the false and real concept of love… Without trying to sound pathetic, our film is about freedom.”

Freedom, and its implications for both the landlocked Republic of Armenia and its large diaspora communities, have come into sharper focus against the backdrop of war, displacement, and struggles over sovereignty and identity during this decade.

It is estimated that three times as many ethnic Armenians live outside the country as inside it – a factor that has given rise to the idea of ​​a “stateless power” associated with a region that has increasingly become a site of geopolitical tensions between the United States, Russia, and Iran.

“The diaspora can serve as a complement to the nation-state, and as a dynamic site of (transnational) identity and culture,” says Susi Kasprian, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Stirling.

“The experience of being an Armenian in the Republic, and the experience of being an Armenian in the Western diaspora after the genocide are two distinct historical experiences, and their cultural production will reflect that.”

One such idea is “My Armenian Ghosts” – an audio-visual journey through works produced by her country’s collective of lost filmgoers, prompted by the death of the director’s father, actor Vigen Stepanyan, in 2021. Through a nostalgic collection of personal archives and Soviet-era films, Tamara reflects on the state of national cinema “organically connected to a now-vanished political, social and cultural world.”

The documentary, Armenia’s entry for the Best International Feature category at the Academy Awards in March, premiered in the UK during the Armenian Film Festival in London last week.

Returning for the second year, the festival – which ran from December 4 to 7 at the International Center for Contemporary Art – opened with the biographical film “Mr. Aznavour,” featuring a performance by Tahar Rahim in the role of the famous French-Armenian singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour.

Also premiering was Eric Nazarian’s Die Like a Man, set in working-class Los Angeles and shot in two weeks using a mostly untrained cast — many of whom were Angelenos affected by the cancerous condition. The film is an example of what Kasprian describes as “Armenian communities [being] Part of the fabric of every society and [sharing] All their preoccupations.

This year, the four-day event received funding from the BFI for the first time, and is rapidly establishing itself among the UK Armenian community. Based in London and Manchester, they form part of a global diaspora that shares painful memories of oppression, displacement and genocide.

“For a small and fragmented community, it was very encouraging and rewarding to see how resonant the festival was and how successful we were in the first year,” says Tatvik Aivazyan, one of the festival organizers and a member of the Armenian Film Association.

Regarding the history of immigration that shaped the diaspora in Britain, Aivazian says: “The Armenian community in the UK came in waves. The first and most important wave came to Manchester.” [were] Fleeing the Hamidian massacres that were the precursor to the Armenian Genocide.

“They came from Cyprus, from Iran after the revolution, from Iraq after the war, from the Soviet Union after its dissolution. There is a terrible amount of baggage, of genocide, of displacement.

“Someone would come up to me and ask, ‘Can we get more comedies?’

In the opening scene of Mr. Aznavour’s film, young Charles watches, applauds and participates in a community gathering. There is music and dancing, but interspersed with images of joy are glimpses of footage – a reminder of what led to their exile to France in the interwar period – showing the famine and deportations that occurred during the genocide that claimed the lives of more than a million people between 1915 and 1922.

Aivazian adds: “We want to have smart, educational art about the tragedies we faced.” [but there is also] The importance of talking about and interacting with other cultures, because stories of displacement, war, and identity are not unique to us. Every war and genocide that occurs in the world resonates with us.”

Recently, Armenia has been in a constant state of change. Two years after a popular uprising in 2018 toppled the old guard of Armenian politics, the country has descended into war with neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Stemming from an unresolved conflict over post-Soviet borders and territories, the Armenian-majority region enjoyed a degree of autonomy within Azerbaijan in the name of the Republic of Artsakh, until Baku sought to end its effective independence militarily, with Turkish support.

By 2023, a major attack and subsequent ethnic cleansing forced thousands of Armenians to flee the region to Armenia in another cycle of tragedy and confusion. Hemmed in by major regional powers, there are signs that the country is turning westward in an attempt to break out of its restricted position.

“It is clear that Russia has traded away the Republic of Artsakh with a deal with Turkey and Azerbaijan,” says Kira Adipkov, who worked alongside Aivazyan to organize the film festival and is involved in a project called TOMO that provides free creative education to teenagers.

Earlier this year, Armenia’s parliament passed a bill to begin the EU accession process, and in August, Donald Trump turned his attention to the region through a US-brokered peace treaty signed by Yerevan and Baku, including provisions for the “Trump Path to International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIP).

Although considered a “vague proposal,” Adebekov says the prospect of Tripp “brings some calm” to the region in the hope of making regional connections that initiatives like Project TOMO might benefit from.

Speaking of contemporary Armenia, which will celebrate the 35th anniversary of its independence from the former Soviet Union next year, Aivazyan says: “Under the shiny façade of relations with the EU, the country still needs to recover from the war and learn how to function after years of Soviet and oligarchic rule.”