Grandma’s Tattoos to be screened at Watertown Middle SchoolNovember 23, 2011 - 12:36 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - On December 14, the Armenian Club of Watertown High School, the ARF Boston “Sardarabad” Gomideh, the Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA), and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will present Suzanne Khardalian’s documentary Grandma’s Tattoos at the Watertown Middle School Auditorium. Khardalian will be present the evening of the screening and will speak and engage in a question-and-answer session following the film, The Armenian Weekly reported. In 1919, just after the end of World War I, Allied forces reclaimed 90,819 Armenian young girls and children who, during the war years, were forced to become prostitutes to survive, or had given birth to children after forced or arranged marriages or rape. Many of these women were tattooed as a sign that they belonged to an abductor. European and American missionaries organized help and saved thousands of refugees who were later scattered all over the world to places like Beirut, Marseilles, and Fresno. Grandma’s Tattoos is a personal film about what happened to many Armenian women during and after the genocide. It is a ghost story - with the ghosts of the tattooed women haunting us—and a mystery film, where many taboos are broken. As no one wants to tell the real and whole story, and in order to bring the pieces of the puzzle together, the director makes us move between different times and space, from today’s Sweden to Khardalian’s childhood in Beirut. “As a child I thought these were devilish signs that came from a dark world. They stirred fear in me. What were these tattoos? Who had done them, and why? But the tattoos on grandma’s hands and face were a taboo. They never spoke about it,” explains Khardalian. Grandma’s Tattoos is a journey into the secrets of the family. Eventually, the secret behind Grandma Khanoum’s blue marks are revealed. Suzanne Khardalian is an independent filmmaker and writer. She studied journalism in Beirut and Paris and worked as a journalist in Paris until 1985, when she started to work on films. She holds a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and contributes articles to different journals. She has directed more than 20 films that have been shown both in Europe and the U.S. They include Back to Ararat (1988), Unsafe Ground (1993), The Lion from Gaza (1996),Her Armenian Prince (1997), From Opium to Chrysanthemums (2000), Where Lies My Victory(2002), I Hate Dogs (2005), Bullshit (2006), and Young Freud in Gaza (2009). Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” Partner news | Ucom Celebrates Telecommunication Day May 17 commemorates the founding of the International Telecommunication Union on May 17, 1865. Armenian, Azerbaijani heads of parliament meet in Switzerland President of the Armenian parliament Alen Simonyan met with the Speaker of the Azerbaijani Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova. Border residents overnight on highway to protest Armenia’s Residents of Kirants continue to express outrage over the government’s decision to cede land to Azerbaijan. Get Started: An educational platform for young startuppers The Get Started program which operates in two phases is an important platform for young startuppers. |