[lbo-talk] "Screamers" documentary about Armenian genocide

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 22 11:59:30 PDT 2007


I'm passing this info along because a friend of mine was involved in an effort to get the documentary _Screamers_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamers_%28documentary%29) shown at the current American Film Institute's Int'l Film Festival in Dallas, one of the rare exciting and cultural things to happen in this stale city, and which of course is barely getting press in the local media, sort of like when a Democratic presidential candidate comes to town. The AFI film fest begins March 23 and goes through the 1st week of April. Dozens of international and domestic films will be shown. http://www.afidallas.com/

_Screamers_ was one she lobbied to have included because it deals first with the Armenian genocide, especially through the advocacy of the nu-metal band System of a Down, an Armenian-American band whose music I don't care for but that I sort of have to respect for their work in this area, even if I'd never listen to their albums (it really ain't my thing musically). The documentary covers the really outrageous attempts by the Turkish establishment to squelch discussion about the genocide, and even shows some surprising complicity in the US political establishment from both sides of the aisle. The film also opens up into a general analysis of the history of genocide in the 20th century, up through Rwanda.

My friend had been troubled when her committee to get the film shown was joined by some unlikely bedfellows: Namely, folks with Christian-right sympathies who believe the Armenian genocide illustrates a simple Muslim(Turk)-on-Christian(Armenian) crime -- feeding into a certain paranoid Xtian worldview that it represents a kind of showdown between Xtianity & Islam, with Xtians as the martyrs, of course -- though I don't believe it's framed this way in the movie AT ALL, even if Armenia, I learned from my friend of Armenian descent, was indeed the 1st Christian nation in history. However it turned out, the film got approved and from the clips I've seen it seems worth checking out, esp. regarding the recent controversy regarding Hrat Dink's death in Turkey and the exploration of the genocidal impulse among peoples throughout the last century. For what it's worth, the friend of mine who agitated to have this film included is pretty radically leftist and wouldn't support its inclusion if it was something boiled down into a simple Muslim vs. Christian story.

A clip of the movie is here: http://www.screamersmovie.com/movie_clips.asp

FYI

-B.



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