1937, Martirosyan

Oggi ho visto un filmato molto bello al centro d'arte contemporanea. Non c'era nessuno. Solo io. Dopo un po' sono entrate due signore. Brille.
Davanti a una sala praticamente vuota é stato mostrato un film davvero bello, intenso e particolare. Per l'uso dei suoni, per il modo in cui storia personale e storia collettiva sono state intrecciate e infine per la fotografia interessante.

Qui sotto la descrizione che il sito del centro propone



1937



Dir. Nora Martirosyan
2007, 44 mins, NC

1937 investigates the relationship between individual and collective memory. It was the year of the Stalinist ethnic cleansing operations by the Soviet Army in Yerevan, the city that had just become the capital of the newly formed Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Republic of Armenia). It was also the year Nora Martirosyan’s great grandfather was arrested for political reasons. Martirosyan provides a fictional report of this political arrest by combining interviews with her grandmother, who tells her own personal story of her father’s arrest, alongside re-enacted scenes and newsreels from the period.

Martirosyan’s films are characterised by a recurring concern with the transmission of history or, more accurately, the fragility of history. History is often regarded as a definitive truth hermetically sealed in the past. In 1937, Martirosyan undermines this traditional understanding. In her presentation of archival footage alongside personal recollection, she emphasises the diverse and transformative nature of the past. Although her grandmother’s account of 1937 Yerevan explores this historical moment on a personal level, Martirosyan is not attempting to rewrite history’s version of events. Instead, she emphasises that the two can simultaneously exist; that memory can vary from the official version of events without challenging, contradicting or replacing it.

In her examination of the past through the lens of the present, Martirosyan explores how the past permeates and continues to shape the present.

In 2007, 1937 was awarded the Sound Prize at FID, Marseille.

Part of CCA's second Beta Movement season.