14/10/2006

Armenia [+see also:
trailer
film profile], by one of France’s most prolific directors, Robert Guédiguian, screened at the RomeFilmFest one day after the Lower Chamber of the French Parliament approved a law making it illegal to deny the genocide of Armenians.

"I was in Parliament yesterday,” said the director after the film’s press screening, “and I agree entirely with the sentence against statements of denial. There already exists a law in France that condemns the denial of concentration camps and the extermination of the Jews, and another on the French colonies. They are laws based on irrefutable facts".

To seal this truth, and with inimitable timing, the Nobel Prize in Literature has just been awarded to Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who is “guiltily” of having mentioned the genocide of Armenians and Kurds.

With this film, which was released in France in June, The director (who was born in Marseilles but is of Armenian heritage) returned to his roots through the story of a French cardiologist (Ariane Ascaride) who travels to Erevan in search of her father who, after being told he has a fatal heart disease, secretly returns to his homeland. The woman, who feels she has absolutely no connection to that country, instead discovers her "Armenian-ness" in this journey at the foot of Mount Ararat.

"The question of identity,” explains Guédiguian, “has become increasingly more pressing. We know how much globalisation leads to the loss of individual diversity. We can re-read Pasolini on this subject. I told myself that this subject is dealt with by nationalists and extremists, whereas the reality lies neither on the left or right. Identity is something that can be recounted in a non-reactionary, non-regressive way".

The film – which portrays Armenia without leaving out its dark side of post-Communist capitalism – came about during a 2000 trip for a retrospective on the director: "I realised that people on the street recognised us, and that I was considered an ambassador of sorts of Armenia. The audiences asked us to make a film there.Armenia is thus a film made to order".

After shooting was completed, Guédiguian’s relationship with the country deepened: "I will return soon to hold a series of presentations on European cinema".

(Translated from Italian)