Film Screening:

Avetik
(Don Askarian, 1992, 84 min, Germany/Armenia, in Armenian w/ English subtitles, Color, DVD)

"Hovering between the realms of poetry and history, this stunningly photographed, elegiac work-hot mostly in long takes-mixes cryptic metaphor and fantastic symbolism to tell the story of Avetik, an Armenian filmmaker exiled in Berlin. Director Askarian employs dreamlike images-a crumbling, ancient stone chapel gradually reduced to nothing by the rumbling vibrations of passing military vehicles; a ghostly cemetery of carved tombstones in which a woman takes a starving sheep in her arm and breast-feeds it back to life-to reflect the history of his homeland and shades of his own exile in Germany. In sensuous, lyric tableaux, Askarian explores German racism, the 1915 Armenian genocide, the disastrous earthquake of 1989, tranquil childhood memories, and images inspired by erotic medieval poetry." -- Harvard Film Archive

-- Skype Q&A to follow w/ director Don Askarian!

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsors: The Duke University Middle East Studies Center, the Duke Islamic Studies Center, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), the Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), and the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies. Made possible by generous support from the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Atlanta.