Name: Cinema of Belonging: 100 Years of Armenian Film – Zare + Ballet
Start: 2023-11-25T20:00:00+01:00
Location: MACA Moving Arts Centre Amsterdam

Cinema of Belonging: 100 Years of Armenian Film – Zare + Ballet

MACA Amsterdam

Celebrating the centennial of Armenian film with a curation of its many cinematic gems.

MACA Moving Arts Centre Amsterdam

Summary:A high point of early realist cinema, Hamo Beknazaryan’s 1926 silent classic Zare is an enthralling exploration of Yazidi-Kurdish culture. The film will be screened with live music in collaboration with the Amsterdam Koerdisch Film Festival. It will also be preceded by a screening of Ballet, an animated short by arguably the best animator in the history of Armenian cinema: Naira Muradyan. A high point of early realist cinema, Hamo Beknazaryan’s 1926 silent classic Zare is an enthralling exploration of Yazidi-Kurdish culture. The film will be screened with live music in collaboration with the Amsterdam Koerdisch Film Festival. It will also be preceded by a screening of Ballet, an animated short by arguably the best animator in the history of Armenian cinema Naira Muradyan.About Zare:It is quite telling of Armenian culture in general that the second ever feature film to be made at the Soviet Armenian Hayfilm Studio was the 1926 silent classic Zare written and directed by the father of Armenian cinema and one of its best filmmakers Hamo Beknazaryan. Like many great Armenian artists (not least of all Sergei Parajanov), Beknazaryan had a special love for representing the cultures of others. In Zare’s case, it’s the Yazidi people, ethnic Kurds, who over the centuries have not converted to Islam, staying true to their original pagan religion. The film’s eponymous character (played by Maria Tadevosyan-Tenazi), a young girl living with her tribe on the slopes of Mount Aragats in Armenia, finds herself entangled in the corrupt tribal leader’s plot to eliminate her beloved Saydo (played by Hrachya Nersisyan) and make her his wife in the turbulent years of the First World War.&nbsp;However what is so unique about the film is not it’s at times comedic, at times action adventure story, but its realistic depiction of the Yazidi-Kurdish people in one of their first if not the first appearance in cinema history. Shot at actual Yazidi campsites at the real Mount Aragats, large chunks of the film are basically documentary and the majority of extras were members of the tribe, who got so carried away during the shoot of the climactic scene, where Zare is being ritually shamed, that they forgot about the cameras and started actually spiting on the actress.&nbsp;Beknazaryan is often dubbed one of cinema’s first realists with his fascinating attention to ethnographic detail and astonishing skill of creating cinematic set pieces out of them, bending the narrative cinema form and creating the basis for poetical developments in Armenian film, later pushed to their magnificent extremes by Parajanov.&nbsp;&nbsp;The screening of Zare within Cinema of Belonging is implemented in collaboration with the Amsterdam Koerdisch Film Festival. Don’t miss the unique chance to see this silent gem with live music!About Ballet:A programme dedicated to the centenary of Armenian cinema would not be complete without the inclusion of at least one animated gem and the weirdest short by arguably the best Armenian animator seems like just the right thing. Naira Muradyan is a true artist who knew her calling very early on. At just 17 years of age, she started working at the Soviet Armenian Hayfilm Studio as a production designer in 1978, participating in the creation of many animated shorts. She started making her own films in 2005 and even though since then she has directed just 10 shorts, all of them beautifully convey her unique view of the world, an astonishing entanglement of raw emotion and deep metaphysics.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ballet is a surreal story of a boy witnessing the tribulations of his mother, whom he loves, at the hands of his father, who, as the child says, “loves mom… at nights”. Full of images possibly inspired by Sergei Parajanov’s collages, the film combines an explosion of visual elements, which seemingly couldn’t be combined. And just as music requires no logical explanation, so does Muradyan’s short, which delivers an emotional experience by means that only pure film animation can provide. About the programme: Cinema of Belonging celebrates the centennial of Armenian film with a curation of its many cinematic gems. Besides an examination of the riches of Armenian cinema, the programme of 5 features and multiple shorts also functions as a fundraiser for the displaced people of Artsakh: all the ticket proceeds of Cinema of Belonging will be donated to local initiatives in Armenia to support refugees from Artsakh.&nbsp;

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Cinema of Belonging: 100 Years of Armenian Film – Zare + Ballet

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Cinema of Belonging: 100 Years of Armenian Film – Zare + Ballet

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