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Post-Exilic Armenian “Homecoming” Films

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Post-Exilic Armenian “Homecoming” Films Post-Exilic Armenian “Homecoming” Films: Working-through the Traumatic Postmemory of 1915 ............ by Kumru Bilici, BA (Hons.) A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Film Studies Carleton University OTTAWA, Ontario Submitted August 2016 © 2016, Kumru Bilici i We are two sick nations: Armenians and Turks. The Armenians are suffering an enormous trauma in relation to the Turks who live through a major paranoia towards the Armenians. We are both a clinical case…. Who will heal us? Is it the decision of French or the US Senate? Who is our doctor to write the prescription? The Armenians are the Turks' and the Turks are the Armenians' doctor. There’s no other doctor or prescription. Our medicine is dialogue. Hrant Dink ii Abstract The Armenian Genocide and its multigenerational effects have long been a topic of cinematic representation. Given the scarcity of archival images and the contested history of the events of 1915, filmmakers have historically been preoccupied with proving the genocide and recalling its trauma. Here, I draw attention to a group of recent documentaries by post-exilic Armenians depicting their emotionally difficult return journeys to Turkey against the background of continuing denial; and I propose that these independent and personal “homecoming” films help us better understand the Armenian filmmakers’ multigenerational diasporic rupture and relationship with their ancestral homeland. Through close examination of three of these documentaries, I argue that the post-exilic Armenian “homecoming” films are cautious yet promising cinematic memory work towards the working-through of the trauma of 1915 seeking the possibilities of restoring an unwelcoming space back into a homeland. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Aboubakar Sanogo whose help, support and guidance made me survive this long and difficult process. His invaluable comments as well as our engrossing conversations were tremendously helpful in helping me find my way when I felt terribly lost many times in the process of writing this thesis. I also wish to thank Malini Guha and Charles O’Brien for their comments on earlier versions of this material during my graduate classes along with Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano who encouraged me to present some parts of this project as a guest lecturer in her graduate course. I also owe big thanks to the wonderful staff members of the Carleton Film Department, especially to Diane Berezowski, Barbara Shannon, and Jack Coghill for helping and encouraging me in different stages of my graduate program. I would like to thank especially Serge Avédikian, Mathieu Zeitindjioglu and Nigol Bezjian and all the other Armenian filmmakers who graciously shared their films, time and insights with me. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends, especially Duygu Gül Kaya for their unending support and understanding in this most challenging time of my life. And to Ümit my wings, and to Ekin my home, without you two I would not even imagine coming this far. To my son Ekin iv Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 - Background: The Armenian Genocide and its Cinematic Representation ............................. 11 Historical Background ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 The Armenian Genocide ............................................................................................................................................. 16 Cinematic Representation of the Armenian Genocide ....................................................................................... 25 Documentary Films on the Armenian Genocide .............................................................................................. 27 Post –Exilic Armenian “Homecoming” Films .......................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 2 - Accented Post-Exilic Armenian Filmmakers and Their “Homecoming” Films ..................... 38 Introducing the three Films and Directors .............................................................................................................. 39 We Drank the Same Water ........................................................................................................................................ 39 The Son of the Olive Merchant ................................................................................................................................. 40 I Left My Shoes in Istanbul ........................................................................................................................................ 42 Accented, Exilic, and Post-Exilic ................................................................................................................................... 44 Post-Exilic Biographical Trajectories .................................................................................................................... 48 Four Essential Features ................................................................................................................................................... 52 Personal, Subjective, and Familial .......................................................................................................................... 53 Journeying and Uneasy Homecomings ................................................................................................................. 58 Oscillating Chronotopes .............................................................................................................................................. 64 Letter Films ...................................................................................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 3 - Working-Through the Traumatic Postmemory of the Armenian Genocide .......................... 73 Armenian Traumatic Postmemory ............................................................................................................................. 75 Postmemorial Aesthetic Work and the Need to Produce Visual Evidence ................................................ 77 Working-Through the Trauma of 1915 .................................................................................................................... 82 The Interplay of Denial and Recognition ............................................................................................................. 86 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................................... 106 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................................... 111 Filmography ........................................................................................................................................................................... 115 1 Introduction In the winter of 2008 French-Armenian director Serge Avédikian screened his film We Drank the Same Water / Nous avons bu la même eau (2008) at the University of Ottawa Auditorium. Following the viewing, Avédikian answered questions regarding his film about his journey to his grandfather Avedis’ birthplace, Sölöz, Turkey. The audience asked whether he was not afraid of travelling to Turkey, to which Avédikian replied by admitting that he had some apprehensions at the start, but that he was still glad he had done it. Later in the evening, when I asked Avédikian about the impact of the film on his life, he candidly answered that the journey had saved him thousands of Euros in psychotherapy. During the following years, as a freelance journalist for Agos, an Istanbul-based Turkish Armenian newspaper, I covered the annual Toronto International Pomegranate Armenian Film Festival. There, I witnessed the predominantly Armenian audience raise the same questions over and over again about the fear of return and the impact of the journey on diasporic Armenian directors who had documented their own journeys to Turkey. Soon, I realized that an increasing number of filmmakers from the diaspora were overcoming their anxieties and making the difficult decision to embark on a “return” journey to Turkey for the first time since their grandparents’ exile. These filmmakers’ relationship to Turkey and their cinematic voyages as members of the Armenian diaspora led me to reflect on our shared traumatic history, its cinematic expression and our
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