The Zohrab Information Center is thrilled to invite you to an online film screening of the documentary Motherland on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 7 PM EDT. We will meet via Zoom and the film will be screened by the Director of the Zohrab Information Center. Following the screening of the film, which has a runtime of about 20 minutes, we will be joined by the directors of the film, Emily Mkrtichian and Jesse Soursouian for a Question and Answer session.
To participate, you will need to download Zoom (zoom.us). Then, to join the event itself, you will need to enter the Meeting ID and password. To receive the Meeting ID and password, please email the Director at zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org. Please note that if you attended a previous online Enrichment Evening we will use the same Meeting ID and password. If you participated before, unless you have lost the information, you don’t need to email to RSVP. Simply join us using the Meeting ID and password at 7 PM EDT on May 7th. New participants should email the Director at zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org.
Motherland follows two women who work full-time as mine clearance officers in Nagorno-Karabakh. They put themselves at great risk in order to save the lives of countless people who use these lands to farm, collect wood, attend school, and rebuild after war. Despite their courageous work, they still face the stigma of independent, working women in a country where they are often the property and responsibility of men. In following their stories, we explore not only their dangerous work, but their lives as they wrestle with the pain of their pasts, their dreams for the future of their children and their country, and the immense joy and bonds they share.
This film is made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Armenian General Benevolent Union and HALO Trust Nagorno Karabakh.
The film screening has been given support by Wesleyan University and members of the University community are invited to join the Zohrab Information Center for the event. Though we are disappointed the film will not be shown on campus at Wesleyan this semester, we are thrilled to present the film to a wide audience!
We are also excited that both directors of the film will be joining us for a Q&A session after the film.
Emily Mkrtichian is an Armenian-American filmmaker and writer. Her films touch on themes of Memory, Place and Identity, exploring creative and collaborative ways to tell stories from marginalized communities around the globe. Her work includes the immersive, multimedia installation Luys i Luso, an exploration of music’s effect on spaces that were lost to a genocide a century before. The installation has traveled to Munich (Unterfahrt), Armenia, NYC (BRIC Arts), LA (Arts Activation fund recipient for public art), and Istanbul (DEPO Gallery). Emily also directed the viral web documentary Levon: a Wondrous Life, about 60-year-old rollerblader living exuberantly in the post-Soviet landscape of Yerevan, Armenia; and she just completed the short documentary Motherland, about the women who shake tradition and risk their lives to rid their country of landmines leftover from an ethnic war.
Jesse Soursourian is an Armenian-American writer and director based in New York City. He wrote the script for the short film Hugh the Hunter, directed by Oscar nominee Zachary Heinzerling, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival as well as other festivals around the world. His feature screenplays have gained recognition from numerous festivals and contests including Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope, in which he was a quarterfinalist. As a director, Jesse’s short documentary, They Were Afraid of Us, screened at multiple festivals at home and abroad.
You can learn more about the film at https://motherlandfilm.org/