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.
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.
In the competitive world of tourism, there are very few experiences that are out of bounds. “Danger Zone” explores the world of war tourism, catering to a growing market for ever more rare and extreme experiences.
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.
Hnutove, Donbass, eastern Ukraine, 2015. Young Oleg lives in a war zone where anti-aircraft gunshots and missile attacks often resonate dangerously near. Although many inhabitants have already left this dangerous area, he remains with his grandmother, who has cared for him since his mother's death, because they have nowhere to go. They are just waiting for the war to end.
"Myth" was the callsign of Vasyl Slipak, the world-famous Ukrainian opera singer, a soloist of the Parisian National Opera, who left the big stage to become a volunteer, a warrior fighting in the East of Ukraine. The Hero of Ukraine, the Knight of the Order "Golden Star" and the Order "For Courage", Vasyl Slipak gave his life, defending Ukraine. This documentary is a real story of heroism and self-sacrifice, which makes us think over our own lives.
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.
When a British-born actor abandons his Hollywood career to volunteer to Join the Kurdish YPG to fight ISIS in Syria, many see him as a selfless hero battling America's most insidious enemy. But others think he's a hot-tempered narcissist, staging a publicity stunt to further his career - and when his service ends, neither the UK nor the US welcome him back. Through incisive interviews with the actor, his supporters, his detractors, and top-tier experts - and featuring the actor's own jaw-dropping helmet-cam video of deadly battles with and interrogations of ISIS fighters - Heval gives viewers unprecedented access into a war against evil and one man's controversial role in it.
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.
A feature documentary presented and directed by former Royal Marines Commando Emile Ghessen. The documentary tells the story of the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh. In the fall of 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a brutal bloody war. Azerbaijan won, decisively. The feature documentary 45 Days: The Fight for a Nation tells the story of this conflict, from the Armenian perspective, focusing on the human cost of war and its impact on the large Armenian diaspora.
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.
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.
Mothers and fathers of gay, lesbian, and trans children from Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine travel to Berlin to walk together in the Pride parade. Living under one roof, they prepare for the march — painting signs, cooking borscht, and reflecting on how their relationships with their queer children have evolved over the years.
Poetic film about the struggle of man's will and muscles against nature, about the rock-climbers who prevent landslides and eliminate their consequences.
ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues is a documentary film by multi-award-winning journalist & documentary filmmaker, Vic Gerami, about the Artsakh Genocide (Nagorno-Karabakh) perpetrated by Azerbaijan and Turkiye. It tells the story of this ongoing tragic chapter through the lens of Armenian-American journalist and LGBTQ+ activist Vic Gerami. Through a journalist’s perspective, ARTSAKH documents Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s unprovoked genocidal attack and ethnic cleansing against Armenians of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, starting on September 27, 2020. Azerbaijan, with the declared assistance from Turkey, launched a large-scale offensive against Artsakh. In its war effort, Azerbaijan relied on thousands of Turkish-paid jihadist mercenaries airlifted from terrorist camps in Syria, Libya, and Pakistan and brought to fight alongside the Azerbaijani Army. For 44 days, the world watched mainly in deafening silence as over 5,000+ Armenians were massacred.
The Grammy-winning lead singer of System of a Down, Serj Tankian helps to awaken a political revolution on the other side of the world, inspiring Armenia's struggle for democracy through his music and message.
Stepanakert's only airport has been operational for 8 years, employing over 50 people. Something is not quite right, however...airplanes and passengers are nowhere to be seen.
In search of the truth behind the story of Noah's Flood, Joanna Lumley and her team examine the theory that Noah's Ark was preserved on Mount Ararat, in Turkish Armenia.
In the early 1990's, as the Soviet Empire disintegrated, two former Soviet Republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, squared off against each other over the fate of the 170,000 Armenians living in the small mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The war eventually claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced close to a million people. By the time of the tenuous cease-fire, most of the enclave was in the hands of its longtime Armenian inhabitants. Dark Forest in the Mountains was shot on location in Nagorno-Karabakh and uses a mix of digital animation, live footage and expert interviews to tell the story of that region of the world, and the events that led up to the conflict. It also focuses on N.K.'s northernmost territory, Shahumian, and the partisans who manned its treacherous Gulistan Front.
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.