Finding Armenia Trailer

We study history as a series of discrete events, but colonial power moves through time — an insidious weave that instigates continuums of erasure. Now, just as Nubar has finished a documentary film on the Armenian genocide of 1915, which displaced his grandparents, Armenians are once again being violently persecuted in Azerbaijan. And the international apathy of over a century ago persists.  

Campaigns to destroy, displace, and fracture create invisibility, but they can only be effective if the rest of the world remains complicit. “What would it feel like to heal our invisibility? To take up space? To shout?” For Nubar: “It would feel like a shift in the earth’s tilt.”  

To tend to a generational fracture means to move toward a new wholeness. It means the right of return. It means the right of memory. It means international community — global solidarity. And in the face of the concurrent atrocities occurring today, this wholeness is something we must demand for all peoples.   

LOGLINE
An Armenian-American photojournalist’s reckoning with the powerful legacy of genocide. When your family’s brutal past is denied, how do you make sense of who you are? 

The year was 1915. Amidst the international political tumult of World War I, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Turks. It was a genocide—an act of evil worthy of international outcry. Yet in the decades that have followed, the world has fallen silent. Today only 35 countries officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, with Joe Biden being the first American President to do so in 2021.  The culturally rich diaspora thus continues to contend with a wound the world refuses to see, relentlessly robbed of both acknowledgement and material reparations.

An intimate portrayal of one man’s search for the essence of an Armenian identity, Finding Armenia not only provides a vital history lesson for those unfamiliar with the Armenian Genocide, but challenges its viewers to grapple with the profound questions that influence all of our identities. What does the healing of intergenerational trauma look like? What does it mean to regain control of our ancestral narratives? How can these narratives be reconciled with a hostile world? And what responsibility do we have to painful histories, even when they are not our own?

Photojournalist Nubar Alexanian was raised speaking Armenian as his first language and surrounded by the haunting sounds of the oud, coming from records his father played constantly. Yet, no one, ever, spoke of the persecution that had brought his grandparents to the United States, nor his grandmother who lost three young daughters on a death march. Nubar felt suffocated by the unspoken suffering and fled as far from his Armenian identity as he could. He rarely liked to talk about his Armenian heritage. Until his daughter Abby, half-Armenian, asked him a simple question: “Dad, will you come with me to Armenia?”

Finding Armenia grew from that question. Without even fully understanding where his ancestral Armenia was, Nubar, a second-generation Armenian-American, set out on a journey with his daughter to discover their history.

What does it mean to be a modern Armenian? We live in a world in which genocide— whether that of the Jews, the Cambodians, the Rwandans—is widely acknowledged and condemned. Yet the murder of more than a million Armenians, 

perpetrated more than 100 years ago by Ottoman Turks, remained largely hidden, a crime to even mention in modern day Turkey.

Equipped with a paper map from a book with his paternal grandmother’s plot of land clearly marked, Nubar and his daughter travel through Eastern Turkey (formerly Historic Armenia) on a guided tour in search of their family’s ancestral homes. The journey is a revelation: moving from avoidance, through painful recognition, to an understanding of his family’s story, Nubar is transformed by his experience and newly immersed in the horror that befell the people of Armenia. Soon he returns alone, this time wanting not just to reunite but to reclaim—to make his grandmother’s confiscated land Armenian again.

The audience follows as Nubar and his small crew engage Turks, both friendly and hostile, as they try to figure out what such a radical reclamation might look like. In the end, it leads to a dangerous act of reparative rebellion, one that may cost Nubar any ability to return. 

When people who have fled reunite with their homelands, they become pilgrims—in search of an ephemeral, nearly spiritual, connection. Land becomes the artifact of a lost world, a receptacle of memory of lives lived and stories told. For Nubar, the soil of Eastern Turkey evoked powerful emotion: the urge to return not only to a place, but to a bygone time. In this way, finding Armenia is more a symbolic act than a physical act of returning. 

Today there are over 100 million refugees around the world fleeing their home countries in search of a safe haven, much like the thousands of Armenians who fled the wrath of the Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century. This, then, is not simply a story about one man, but a story about all of those people—a story of the way legacies of persecution and migration manifest themselves, of the intersections of memory, personhood, and place, and of the power of our own stories to help us heal. 

Director/Producer: Nubar Alexanian
Writer/Producer: Abby Alexanian
Editor: Sabrina Zanella-Foresi
Cinematographer: P.H. O’Brien
Consulting Producer: Jocelyn Glatzer
Consulting Producer: Jackie Mow
Consulting Producer: Laura Wiessen
Start Date: October 2011 Release Date: 2024
Fiscal Sponsor:  Filmmakers Collaborative
Target running time: 75:00
Status:  currently in postproduction.

See Feature Film Trailer: Finding Armenia

12 comments

  1. I am deeply moved and intrigued by your description of the film. And your determination to tell the story. The refusal to acknowledge the fate of the Armenian people by Turkey and the USA is beyond belief. And to think that in Germany it is a crime to deny the existence of the Holocaust.

    I applaud and support your efforts.

  2. From JD: Thank you for sending this to us. I have tears in my eyes as I write to you. I cry when I watch the trailer.

    I have a client who has been suffering for years. We have referenced the genocide for years in our work as I always felt she had 3rd generation trauma from the Armenian genocide; both her parents are Armenian. Her grandmother with whom my client was close, came here when she was 15 – her entire family killed.

    I sent her the trailer last night. I received the most beautiful email back from her. It is transformative. Her response was so authentic; she was deeply touched by what she saw. Her response has brought tears to my eyes. I am hoping she will give me permission to cut and paste some of the email to you so your own heart can be touched and encouraged by what you and Abby are doing.

    In the meantime, she is asking for permission to send this to her Armenian community in hope of donations. Is it ok for her to circulate this?

    Thanks again for listening to this story as one of many revealing the need for truth,
    Warmly,
    JD

    Client’s Response:
    “I just finished watching it. I have no words…

    I so want to see this complete movie made – to know the truth is out in the world for anyone to know.

    This makes it all so much more real – I have seen the pictures, but not the beauty of the land. And the river – I did not know about the river, and my tears surprised me. But they felt like they came from a pure grief, a communal grief I guess. It made me gasp to hear that story.

    The ‘death’ threats on facebook must have made it feel unsafe to share there. I am astonished that they were threatened this way. It must have made them feel what our ancestors felt. It makes it all the more imperative that this is finished and seen and witnessed…

    Thank you for sharing this, and for knowing how important it is. I will donate what I can, but I want to know how to get the word out to more Armenians.

    I am taken by both the sorrow and the connection this makes me feel. It is my peoples truth – their narrative.

    How essential truth telling is – telling your story, being heard & believed.
    That is what this film is asking for, what my ancestors were denied, and what Armenians need.

    Thank you with all my heart. Your words mean so much to me.
    Absolutely share what you choose with Nubar – I have no worries
    about my privacy. I feel safe, and heard.

    Please tell him how touched I was – I keep thinking about the river…
    The horror felt closer – and I felt closer to my roots, which surprised me.
    It was so moving to see them bring his family back to their home where they belonged.

    No matter what becomes of this film, I am sure that gave them some peace.”

    Thank you for everything,

  3. I just watched your trailer and am feeling so much…….tears, courage, tenderness, beauty, anger. This is so moving and I am just filled with admiration at the journey that you are making for the healing of so, so many people.

    May your journey continue on and on, safely and very deeply.
    with so much gratitude for you all,
    SH

  4. I watched your trailer of selects, and think that you have the makings of an incredibly powerful film.

    The footage is beautiful. And Abby’s journey into her family’s past is incredibly powerful. Abby’s observations along the way are haunting and raw. And it’s a story that needs to be told. And ultimately, it’s Abby’s story to tell. She’s a beautiful, strong guide, and is captivating to watch as she retraces the footsteps of her ancestors.
    SM

  5. Hello! I am so excited to see that someone else has thought about looking at the Genocide from this perspective. My name is Lara and I am an undergraduate student at Georgetown University currently writing my senior thesis on healing and reconciliation, specifically in the Armenian Diaspora community. This work is inspirational and I am looking forward to seeing the final product.

  6. looks very interesting, where can I see this film or buy it ? my thoughts always go back to 1 finding this whole history in a book named ‘ Pearl’ , written by Donitha Dyer in the 70’s and have wanted more information about the history of it. thanx for your work and for the information : )

  7. Oh Nubar, wow….. I’m choked up and on the edge of my seat wishing I could see the whole documentary RIGHT NOW. Those heart-stopping archival photos, the new footage, the great music, the emotion in you and Abby. The scene at the river, her talking about it….Tears in my eyes.
    This is so important a project.
    Just curious why using black and white of Abby in certain sections.
    Looking forward to seeing more!

  8. Thanks so much Syd! There are a couple of reasons for using black & white. First, these two clips are the only moments when someone is talking directly into the camera–to the viewer. Because of this, we needed a device to create a stronger connection between them. Second, Abby is recording herself with her iPhone and the resolution of the footage is very different (lower res). So I thought we could “crush” the image a bit to make their appearance look more deliberate. Make sense?

  9. Thank you so much for making this film! My grandparents survived the Genocide and came to the U.S. in the 1920’s. Feeling called to visit my homeland ever since I can remember, I was finally able to spend 9 weeks last year volunteering in what is Armenia today. What it is to be Armenian today is do complex and layered.

    I would love to see this film. When and where can I see this film?

    Vanya Garabedian

    1. Thank you Vanya! We’re working very hard to raise the money to finish this film. You can help by making a donation here and by spreading the word.

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