On Easter 2018, a man put on a backpack and began to walk across Armenia. His mission: to inspire a velvet revolution and topple the corrupt regime that enjoys absolute power in his former Soviet nation. With total access to all key players, this documentary tells the story of what happened in the next 40 days.
Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.
Casimê Celîl was born into a Yezidi Kurdish family in 1908, in a village called Kızılkule, located in Digor, Kars. The village and family life, which he longed to remember throughout his life, ends with the massacre they endured in 1918. During his long road to Erivan, Armenia, he lost all his family members. Left all alone, Casim was placed into an orphanage and was forced to change his name. To remember who he was and where he came from, every morning he repeated the mantra “Navê min Casim e, Ez kurê Celîlim, Ez ji gundê Qizilquleyê Dîgorê me, Ez Kurdim, Kurdê Êzîdî me”, which translates to: “My name is Casim, I am the son of Celîl, I come from the village of Kızılkule in Digor, I am a Kurd, and I am Yezidi”. He clings to every piece of his culture he can find, reads, and saves whatever Kurdish literature or art he comes across. As the year’s pass, Casim finds himself with an impressive collection of Kurdish culture and history.
He is Khagani Aliyev, a resident of Saricali village of Aghdam. On July 23, 1993, Khagani Aliyev, who heard about another Armenian attack on Aghdam, went home to take his parents who had not left the village to a temporary safe area...
INTENT TO DESTROY embeds with a historic feature production as a springboard to explore the violent history of the Armenian Genocide and legacy of Turkish suppression and denial over the past century.
Using unpublished photos taken by Italian war photographer Enrico Sarsini, and the reconstruction of key events, this film examines the battle for a strategically-located church that was defended by Azerbaijani teenager Natig Gasimov. After his surrender and interrogation by Armenian forces, he was never heard of again. This film finds out what happened to Natig and who may be responsible. Filmed over a period of three years, filmmaker Karan Singh spoke to witnesses in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Italy and Russia in his search for the truth.
Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.
A couple returns to Aghdam, the city they once fled 32 years ago due to the war. It's a story about memory held in people, and about the small, powerful ways the past resurfaces when you finally face it.
For thirty years now, a dilapidated house has been providing essential asylum to war refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh. Three generations, including the children and grandchildren of people made to leave their homes, struggle to scratch an existence on the outskirts of Baku. They are faced with common problems: loss of home, outrooting, sadness and illnesses.
Aivazovsky's paintings on historical Armenian themes. His works were not only on marine subjects. In this short we can also see the church of St. Sarkis, where the artist was baptized. He was married within the walls of this ancient temple, and his funeral service was held there in 1900. Modern photos of Armenia and Western Armenia, where Aivazovsky's ancestors were from, harmoniously complement the film. And at last, the picturesque views of Feodosia, the city where the artist lived and worked for many years.
Experience spectacular aerial and ground views and cultural revelations of a country like no other in a virtual tour of Mount Ararat, Khor Virap, Yerevan, the Genocide memorial, and more. Narrated by Andrea Martin, the documentary features prominent voices from the Armenian diaspora including Eric Bogosian, Chris Bohjalian, Peter Balakian, Michael Aram, and others.
The film is dedicated to the ethnogenesis of a small people, preserving their traditions and language, the Udi people
Explores the Ottoman Empire killings of more than one million Armenians during World War I. The film describes not only what happened before, during and since World War I, but also takes a direct look at the genocide denial maintained by Turkey to the present day.
Humans transform the world. In a stone mine, huge majestic rocks are blasted into pieces and after passing through the stone processing line, they gradually transform into pebbles.
In October, during the tense days of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, the director takes his camera to the village of Ashagi Nuvedi in Lankaran. The film follows the daily lives of fishermen — Sakhavat, Ramesh, Rza and Tehran — living in the shadow of the war. They go out to sea every morning amid news from the front, fearing empty nets, and hoping for a miracle — a goldfish in difficult days.
The film is about the breeding of the famous Karabakh horses at the Aghdam equestrian factory.
The last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
The months of struggle people of Bashlibel had to overcome to live during the first Karabakh war and their escape into safety.
More than one million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1916 in massacres or brutal deportation programs. Turkey still denies it ever happened. Laurence Jourdan examines massacres of Armenians in the decades leading up to the mass murder, and the geopolitical situation both before and after the genocide. Contemporaneous reports and documents written by Western diplomats stationed in the Ottoman Empire describe the methods used and the deportation routes. These accounts are mixed with personal stories from the living survivors and archive footage from Ottoman authorities.
It's one of the most corrupt countries in the world and widely criticised for its human rights record but this year Azerbaijan is hosting Eurovision - one of the most glitzy TV music competitions in the world.