Et Cetera

An Armenian film, “1489” won the Main Jury and the International Federation of Film Critics prizes at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam in 2023 amid upheaval and controversy that triggered a series of withdrawals and boycotts of the festival for its perceived silence regarding Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The juxtaposition of two cinematic adaptations of the same literary work reveals polar perceptions of history, tradition, national culture and lifestyle. And by doing so, it indicates that the boundaries of "Armenian cinema" are much wider than they seem.

Armenia’s first and only cinema mogul, Daniel Dznuni, was accused of sabotaging the work of Armenfilm in 1936. After spending several years in prison, he was released but never returned to the theater. Part II of Anush Vardanyan’s exploration of Dznuni’s life and work.

How does war shape the collective narrative? How have Armenian writers since the 1990s approached the impact of multiple wars? Mariam Aloyan looks at Armenian “war literature” spanning generations and decades.

The unprecedented influx of Russian citizens due to the Russia-Ukraine war into states that were under Moscow’s rule for centuries, is often locally perceived as endangering the identity and undermining the independence of these states. Maria Gunko explains.

Film critic Alexander Melyan takes the reader on a journey of Atom Egoyan’s films that explore complex narratives including the immigrant experience, nostalgia, the search for home and longing for a lost homeland.

Through his art, Hagop Hagopian was changing the lens on the idea of Armenia as a mythical topos, an atavistic construct of the Armenian paradise. Instead he presented a land of extreme harshness and desolation in which life can happen only as a product of tremendous effort and unconditional belief.

Self-pity and victimhood have served as comfortable escape routes from pervasive issues, however, in the current post-war reality there are clear signs that there is a desire to address the fault lines, to understand and rethink the reasons behind past failures, to stop and reflect.

A recent exhibition “The Guises of the Nude: Perceptions of Nudity in Armenian Graphic Arts” provided a powerful opportunity to challenge prevailing meta-narratives and foster a self-reflective dialogue that can contribute to the broader project of decolonization and social transformation.

Major film festivals don’t only showcase films for local and international cinephiles, they also create opportunities for unknown stories, names and voices to be heard. Sona Karapoghosyan writes about how the Cannes Film Festival is trying to tell the stories of everyone, not only ones from the West.