My friend Louisa is an Armenian-American. My friend Lane used to monitor Armenians for the FBI. Even so, I knew little about the country’s history. And, like most Americans, I had no idea where to find Armenia on a map.
As it turns out, the Republic of Armenia is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan Ato the east, and Iran to the south. Beginning in 1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested by Ottoman authorities and a large number perished in what has become known as the Armenian Genocide.
This new movie “Amerikatsi” — screening at Tropic Cinema — allows us to take a closer look.
Born and raised in San Francisco, filmmaker Michael A. Goorjian (“Illusion”) is an Emmy Award-winning actor, writer and director who happens to be of Armenian descent. He describes the film as a “passion project of sorts.” He says he wanted an opportunity to display Armenia’s rich cultural heritage on screen.
“My grandparents were both survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and in being Armenian and being an artist, I have always felt that I needed to do something related to my heritage,” he explains. “A lot of the focus in film has been in and around the genocide, which is obviously an incredibly important topic.”
Here, we get a glimpse of Armenian history: There was the genocide and then 30, 40 years later you had members of the diaspora returning to Armenia and being sent to labor camps in Siberia. It has been described as a “wound upon a wound.”
Set during the post-World War II era, a turbulent period in Armenian history, “Amerikatsi” introduces us to Charlie Bakhchinyan, an Armenian who escaped the genocide as a boy by fleeing to the United States. Now, as an adult, Charlie decides to return to his home in hopes of finding a connection to his roots. But instead he finds a country crushed under Soviet rule.
Charlie is portrayed by Michael Goorjian himself, presented as a naïve and bumbling young man who gets in over his head in a country he barely remembers.
Here, during a run on food, Charlie encounters a woman (Nelli Uvarova) who loses track of her son amid the chaos of a hungry mob. He finds the boy, and the grateful mother invites him to have dinner with her and her family. As it happens, she is married to a Russian Commander (Mikhail Trukhin).
When Charlie complains about the country’s living conditions, his hostess asks her husband to help him, but instead the mean-spirited Commander arrests Charlie for the absurd crime of wearing a polka-dot tie in Soviet Armenia.
Through a series of miscommunications, Charlie inadvertently confesses to being an American spy and is sentenced to 10 years in prison. Locked in solitary confinement, he experiences depression, until he discovers that from his cell window he can see into a nearby apartment building — the home of a prison guard.
By watching the couple (Hovik Keuchkerian and Narine Grigoryan) in their apartment, day in and day out, he finds himself vicariously living through them and relating to their struggles. Thus, Charlie begins to learn that the true spirit of his homeland is alive in its passionate people.
“For me, it took a while to find the story that I felt I could tell,” says Goorjian. “I wanted to tell a story that was hopeful. I wanted to spread information about the beauty of Armenian culture.”
“Amerikatsi” takes place in 1948. “I always wanted to capture the tone of the time and the characters,” he says. “It ended up having this Old Hollywood feel. I wish there were more movies like that nowadays, I mean, I love heavy, dark, cynical movies. However, I think there should also be a place for light entertainment to flourish.”
The Armenian film industry fell into disarray after the Soviet Union collapsed. “We are also a split group and a split ethnicity because there is a divide that exists between the diaspora and those who still reside in the East,” says Goorjian. “There are Syrian-Armenians, Persian-Armenians, Lebanese-Armenians, so many different types of Armenians. In making this film, we were able to bring all of these different groups together and had the opportunity to work in Armenia. The whole film was shot there and not many films are shot there.”
opportunity to work in Armenia. The whole film was shot there and not many films are shot there.”
“Amerikatsi” premiered at Woodstock Film Festival in 2022, where it won the Best Narrative Feature Award, the Audience Award at the Hamburg Film Festival, and the Best Narrative Feature at Beloit International Film Festival. It is Armenia’s entry in the 96th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.
Film Thread observed that “Amerikatsi” tackles a solemn subject with “humor and levity.” Critic Hope Madden calls it “a heartfelt love letter to Armenia and the resilience of its people.”
Despite the dark subject matter, you will find that “Amerikatsi” is an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser. In short, it’s about hope and the art of survival in the worse of conditions.
Source : Keys News