Armenian Genocide Documentary to have its West Coast Premiere
Voyage to Amasia, a new documentary film by Randy Bell and Eric V. Hachikian, won the Special Jury Award at the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, Virgina this past weekend. A yearly tribute to cinema, the Alexandria Film Festival presents feature-length films, documentaries, animation, and shorts by emerging and established filmmakers to an engaged audience seeking new or rarely seen films. In its sixth year, the mission of the Alexandria Film Festival is to promote cinema as an important cultural and educational asset and market Alexandria as a dynamic venue for creating, exhibiting, and experiencing film.
Voyage to Amasia will have its West Coast premiere on Saturday, December 1 at 10:00pm at the Arpa International Film Festival, where it is screening at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA. More information is at www.itsmyseat.com//events/406705.html. The film had its world premiere at the Pomegranate Film Festival in Toronto in December 2011, where it won the prize for Best Documentary. It has also screened at the 2012 Golden Apricot International Film Festival (Yerevan, Armenia), the Minneapolis International Film Festival, the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, and the St. Louis International Film Festival.
Voyage to Amasia documents composer Eric Hachikian’s return to his ancestral home – Amasia, Turkey – nearly 100 years after Ottoman soldiers deported his grandmother during the Armenian Genocide. The film is set to Eric’s piano trio of the same name, which provided the initial inspiration for the documentary. Voyage to Amasia traces a path through the past, honoring Eric’s relationship with his grandmother and uncovering what her family’s life in Turkey might have been like. It also explores how the events of nearly a century ago continue to strain the relationship between Armenians and Turks today. Inspired by one family’s story, the filmmakers embark on their own journey in the hopes of finding a greater understanding between two peoples still at odds. More information on the film can be found at www.voyagetoamasia.com.
Randy Bell is a Washington, DC-based independent filmmaker. His documentary films, which explore subjects as diverse as American popular music, mid-century European modernist architecture, and the AIDS orphan crisis in Kenya, have won awards from the Cleveland International Film Festival, the New England Film and Video Festival, and the Ivy Film Festival. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University in 2000, and his Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2010.
Eric V. Hachikian is an Armenian-American composer whose music has been hailed by the New York Times as “lovely and original.” His compositions and orchestrations can be heard in a variety of major motion pictures, network television shows, and national and international ad campaigns. They have been performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, at Boston’s Symphony Hall, at The Getty in Los Angeles, and Off-Broadway in New York City. A classically-trained composer, as well as a self-taught DJ and perpetual student of world music, Eric’s musical style has no boundaries, and his multi-genre interests result in a unique and personal sound.
