The Boston Chapter of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society will be screening two new films by filmmaker Nigol Bezjian in November. The first film, “Milk, Carnation, and a Godly Song” searches into the literary legacy of Daniel Varoujan, one of the pillars of Armenian literature. Through a close analysis of his poetry by renowned experts, viewers get a glimpse of how Armenian literally thinking evolved from pagan times up to 2010, when on April 24 in Istanbul, a public commemoration in memory of the Armenian Genocide was held for the first time.
The second film, “I Left My Shoes in Istanbul,” closely follows the journey of a Lebanese-Armenian modernist poet who embarks on a journey that has been delayed for a century—to his ancestral city of Istanbul, where he finds his cultural and literary roots. The journey takes viewers to the old streets of Istanbul, once populated by Armenians, to the ancient cemeteries and the poets buried there, the old churches and more than a century-old high school. He meets the young and old, the famed and humble, Armenians and Turks; listens to their stories, their opinions; laughs and shares food with them.
Nigol Bezjian was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1955. He graduated from high school in South Boston, Mass. After completing his cinema studies at the School of Visual arts in New York, he received a BFA and subsequently completed his post-graduate cinema studies at UCLA, with an MFA in film production, history, and critical and theoretical studies. He has made several films and received numerous awards and global festival screenings, notably for his “Chickpeas,” “Roads Full of Apricots,” “Muron,” “Verve,” and “Home/Land.” Bezjian is currently a senior TV producer in the Middle East.
“Milk, Carnation, and a Godly Song” will be screened on Fri., Nov. 1, at 6 p.m. at the Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church Hall, on 200 Lexington St., Belmont, Mass. “I Left My Shoes in Istanbul” will be screened on Wed., Nov. 6, at 8 p.m., at Belmont Studio Cinema, on 376 Trapelo Rd., Belmont. Tickets are $15 for each screening (or $25 for both) and can be purchased at the door or by calling Tatoul Badalian at (617) 331-0426. Bezjian will be present at both screenings to introduce the films and answer questions. Both films have English subtitles.
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