4th Annual Film Festival
Nov. 12 & 13, 2011
Fresh Pond Cinemas
168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA
Call (617) 610-9399 for advance purchase tickets ($10 per showing).
SATURDAY SHOWING
12;00 PM	Moi, Michel G., milliardaire, maitre du monde (Michel G, King of the World)
2:00 PM	Charents: In Search Of My Armenian Poet
4:00 PM (shown together)	Ici Bas (Down Here)
	Le Piano (The Piano)
6;00 PM (shown together)	Chienne d'histoire (Barking Island)
	Histoire de Chiens (Dogs' Story)
SUNDAY SHOWING
12:00 PM	Keepers of Memory
1:00 PM	Un Juillet a Ledjap (July in Ledjap)
2:30 PM	HERE
5:00 PM	Le Fils du Marchand (Son of the Olive Merchant)
S A T U R D A Y
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Moi, Michel G., milliardaire, maitre du monde   (Michel G, King of the World)
"Moi, Michel G, Milliardaire, Maître du Monde" is a mocumentary about a fictional business tycoon. Michel Ganiant has the power, the money, the woman. And now he has a film crew on his back... Discover the true face of neo-liberalism and enter the crazy world of Michel Ganiant. Too bad it's your world too.
	Stephane Kazandjian   Stephane Kazandjian is a writer / director based in Paris. After "Sexy Boys" (2001) - which is now considered the first French teen movie - , and "Modern love" (2008) - a tribute to romantic comedies and musicals - "Michel G, King of the World' is his third feature film. He also wrote the feature length 3D animation movie "A Monster in Paris", directed by "Shark Tale" director, Bibo Bergeron which screened at the Toronto Film Festival and was recently released in France.
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Charents: In Search Of My Armenian Poet
Charents: In Search of My Armenian Poet explores the life and work of one of Armenia's best-loved poets, Eghishe Charents, who was tragically killed in a Stalinist prison in 1937 under mysterious circumstances. This literary travelogue takes viewers on a journey from Armenia to the poet's birthplace in Kars, Turkey, and includes interviews with experts of his work and stylized poetry readings by ordinary Armenians. WATCH TRAILER HERE
	Shareen Anderson Shareen Anderson is an award-winning, independent filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York and Johannesburg, South Africa and the founder of Fort Greene Filmworks, a company that specializes in documentary filmmaking. For Al Jazeera English, Shareen co-directed and co-produced the critically-acclaimed eight-part documentary series entitled "Saving Soweto", and a one hour documentary entitled "Forgotten Freedom Fighters". Charents: In Search of My Armenian Poet is her feature-length documentary directorial debut.
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Ici Bas   (Down Here)
An abstract realist look at life in Armenia: Loss of family space, workspace, urban space and memory space. These four subdivisions of space tested by time, searching for and responding to each other, contaminated by chaos in a town falling apart. WATCH TRAILER HERE
	Comes Chahbazian   Comes Chahbazian graduated as assistant director at Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Française (Paris, 2001) and in International Commerce in 1998 (Brussels). Between 1995 and 1999, both in Belgium and in the USA, he took courses in cinema and theater, acting, circus techniques, acrobatics, mime and photography. In 2002, he wrote, photographed and directed four short films screened in a number of international festivals. Ici Bas won the Silver Apricot Award in the Golden Apricot film festival in 2010.
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Thirteen years after the Armenian city of Leninakan was destroyed in an earthquake, Loussiné, a 13 year old orphan lives with her grandfather in a "domik" – a prefabricated small house. She is dumb, but a talented pianist. To prepare for an international competition, the Ministry of Culture lends her a beautiful piano. But when the instrument is delivered, it’s clear that the trailer where they live is too small to hold a piano…
	Lévon Minasian Born in Leninakan (re-named Gyumri), Armenia, Levon Minasian commenced his theatre studies at the Institute of Fine Arts and Theatre in Yerevan (Armenia). He worked as an actor at the Araspel and Vardan Adjemian Theatres in Gumri. He studied film at the University of Paris-8 (France). In 1996, he receives his Master’s Diploma with distinction with the congratulations of the jury. He is an awarded scriptwriter, also has directed short films, produced mainly by French production companies.
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Barking Island
Constantinople 1910. The streets are overrun with stray dogs. The newly-established government, influenced by a model of Western society, uses European experts to choose a method of eradication before deciding, suddenly and alone, to massively deport the dogs to a deserted island away from the city. WATCH TRAILER HERE
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Histoire de Chiens   (Dogs' Story)
Istanbul, 2010. While the city is promoted as a European capital of culture, who remembers that thousands of dogs had been exterminated in 1910 for the sake of westernization and progress? Residents reflect upon the interactions they have today with the street dogs in their neighborhood. From European downtown to the distant suburbs, the diversity of views illuminate a society in evolution, its contradictions and its starting dynamics.
	Serge Avedikian Serge Avedikian is a director and actor. He has directed documentary films (Sans retour possible, Que sont mes camarades devenus, Irina Brook: le plaisir contagieux, Nous avons bu la même eau), short and medium length dramatic films (Bonjour Monsieur, Au revoir Madame, M'sieurs Dames, Mission accomplie), film poems (J'ai bien connu le soleil, Le cinquième rêve, Lux aeterna, Terra emota) and three animated films ("Ligne de vie", "Un beau matin" et "Chienne d'histoire"). "Chienne d'histoire" received the "Palme d'Or for short film at Cannes in 2010. He is currently working on a dramatic feature film.
S U N D A Y
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Keepers of Memory
Through eyewitness accounts and gripping footage, acclaimed director Eric Kabera takes the viewer on an emotional journey into the 1994 Rwandan genocide, its survivors, and the memorials created in the victims' honor. The film focuses on the personal accounts of men and women who watch over the sacred burial sites keeping the memories alive for future generations. In 1994, the small African nation of Rwanda was host to a brutal genocide that saw nearly one million people slaughtered during the span of 100 days. Director Eric Kabera's powerful documentary KEEPERS OF MEMORY revisits the human tragedy through stunning location footage and wrenching interviews with survivors who tend to genocide memorial sites in order to impart their lessons to future generations.
	Eric Kabera   Eric Kabera is a Rwandan documentary and fiction filmmaker and producer. He collaborated on one of the first fictionalized films about the genocide, 100 Days (dir. Nick Hughes), and has participated in a variety of projects related to the process of memorialization and commemoration of the events of 1994 and their aftermath. Kabera is also the founder of the Rwanda Cinema Centre and the Rwanda Film Festival.
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Un Juillet a Ledjap   (July in Ledjap)
July in ledjap by Khajag Soudjian, is a portrait of a remote Armenian village that still suffers economic repercussions from the collapse of the USSR twenty years ago. In its first humanitarian undertaking, C.S.O.E., a French relief group, spends several weeks there one summer, renovating dilapidated buildings and organizing activities for unoccupied children.
	Khajag Soudjian   Khajag Soudjian was born and educated in Paris. At 22, his first music video appeared in the Festival International des Arts du Clip. Based on his first film, July in Ledjap, he was invited to the Berlinale Talent Campus of the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. He has since completed two shorts that have garnered many festival prizes and is currently directing two TV shows for French television.
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HERE
Set against the gorgeous landscape of Armenia, HERE chronicles a brief but intense relationship between an American satellite-mapping engineer (Foster) and an expatriate photographer (Azabal) who impulsively decide to travel across the remote countryside together. As their trip comes to an end, the two must decide where to go from HERE.
	Braden King   Braden King co-directed the film DUTCH HARBOR: WHERE THE SEA BREAKS ITS BACK, a lyric, non-fiction meditation on the life and landscape of an Aleutian Island community off the coast of Alaska. Recent non-narrative work includes HEAVEN IS A PLACE / NOTHING EVER HAPPENS and THE STORY IS STILL ASLEEP. King’s work has been screened on all major U.S. broadcast networks, HBO, the BBC, Sundance Channel, MTV, Channel 4 (UK) and others.
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Le Fils du Marchand D'Olives   (Son of the Olive Merchant)
For their honeymoon, Anna and Mathieu went to Turkey. With camera in hand, they traced the footsteps of Garabed, the Armenian grand-father of Mathieu, who escape the 1915 genocide. They are determined to learn more about Mathew's Armenian origins. In this country where speaking of the Armenian genocide could be dangerous, their name with Turkish intonations serves a purpose to get people talking about their idea of the Turkish involvement during 1915 tragedy. A road trip across the country mixing animation with documentary, to report a sad confirmation: The denial has become an institution, rewriting the history books and pretending that there was a genocide, but a genocide committed by the Armenians against the Turks. WATCH TRAILER HERE
	Mathieu Zeitindjioglou After studying painting and applied art, I turned myself to motion pictures which appeared to me as the ultimate forms of art and expression. As it mixes both, the most primitive form of communication, as images, symbols and sounds, with the most sophisticated forms of narration and intellectual reflexion. Through these two extremes, I feel motion pictures help to explore the enigmatic nature of the human being's behavior. Through my films, I attempt to touch both the mind and the heart of spectators, to reach a sense of togetherness of humanity.
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Please send your films in DVD format for consideration to: Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance Sunset Gower Studios, 1438 N. Gower St., Box 24, Courtyard Suite 43 Hollywood, CA 90028 USA

 

 

 

 

 

The Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance (ADAA) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Its mission is to make the Armenian voice heard on the world stage through the dramatic arts of theatre and film. The organization accomplishes this mission by supporting playwrights and screenwriters and provides production opportunities, commissions, scholarships, research tools, networking resources and writing awards. The organization is currently working on creating relationships with leading theaters in the United States to establish reading series so that the winning scripts – and other scripts by ADAA-affiliated playwrights -- will be seen and heard. ADAA’s headquarters are in Cambridge, MA with worldwide affiliates in Paris, Yerevan, Los Angeles, Boston, New York and other major cities.