Sunday, October 20
︎ 14:00-17:00
︎ Theatre at MAC Birmingham

GENOCIDE, DISPLACEMENT, AND FAMILY HISTORIES IN ETHIOPIA AND ARMENIA

THE MEDALLION by Ruth Hunduma (19 mins) 
1489 by Shoghakat Vardanyan (76 mins)
+ Q&A (60 mins)

︎ Tickets

Screening Rights Film Festival is bringing the latest socially engaged and formally innovative cinema from the Global South to audiences in the West Midlands. The penultimate screening of its 10th-anniversary edition, subtitled DOUBLE BILL and aimed at fostering South-to-South solidarity, features Ruth Hunduma’s The Medallion alongside Shoghakat Vardanyan’s 1489 as part of an event exploring genocide, displacement, and family histories in Ethiopia and Armenia.

THE MEDALLION
Ruth Hunduma / 2023 / Estonia, UK / 19’ / English

Partially filmed in soothing 16 mm and featuring a heartfelt conversation between the filmmaker Ruth Hunduma and her mother about the latter’s experience of displacement, The Medallion movingly highlights the Ethiopian Civil War and Red Terror of the 1970s.

Ruth Hunduma is an Ethiopian-Australian writer, director, actor and poet.

1489
Shoghakat Vardanyan / 2023 / Armenia / 76’ / Armenian with English subtitles

Shot primarily within her family home, Shoghakat Vardanyan’s 1489 is a deeply intimate, first-person account of her family’s attempts to locate her brother Soghomon, a soldier assigned the number 1489 after going missing in action in 2020, at the onset of the latest (and most devastating) cycle of Azerbaijani aggression, which culminated in the occupation of the ethnically Armenian republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in autumn 2023. Filmed using a phone, Vardanyan’s stripped-down full-length documentary debut has the immediacy of war zone reportage, while also seeking grounding and solace in birds, her father’s artworks, and the natural landscape. Awarded the main prize at IDFA, the world’s premier documentary film festival, 1489 signals the arrival of a major filmmaking talent, highlighting her homeland’s beauty as well as its history of genocide and resistance.

Shoghakat Vardanyan is a first-time Armenian filmmaker whose deeply intimate account of the 2020 Artsakh war, titled 1489, has been acclaimed at film festivals worldwide.

The screening will be accompanied by a panel discussion featuring guest curator Anna-Maria Tesfaye and the filmmaker Ruth Hunduma, with more guests TBA.  

CONTENT WARNING: Please note 1489 contains scenes depicting human remains.

SEEING ONESELF IN ANOTHER:
ANNA-MARIA TESFAYE RESPONDS TO THE MEDALLION

In my own activism at Queer Svit, where I work with LGBTQ+ and Global Majority individuals in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, I see the ways in which that displacement—whether due to political persecution, war, or identity-based violence—continues to fracture communities and families. Yet, I also see how the sharing of stories, of family histories, can foster solidarity and healing, even among those from seemingly disparate contexts. This sense of connection is mirrored in The Medallion, as Hunduma’s work speaks not only to the Ethiopian experience but to all communities who have faced the erasure of their histories. Read the full response ︎

GUEST CURATOR’S BIO

Anna-Maria Tesfaye is a London-based multimedia human rights journalist, producer, and Queer Black rights activist. She serves as the project manager at Queer Svit, an NGO that supports LGBT+ people in the EECCA region.

MIRACLES DO NOT EXIST:
HOVSEP RESPONDS TO SHOGHAKAT VARDANYAN'S 1489

It is September 21st, Armenia’s Independence Day. I glance at my calendar, which also marks today as the UN's International Day of Peace. As if in some sick, premeditated joke, today marks a year since the forces of Artsakh were finally and completely defeated, resulting in a hundred thousand people fleeing their homes and the dissolution of the breakaway republic. I read an article by my friend Grikor Atanessian, and the opening line cuts deep: "For the first time in over a millennium, there are no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh." You might theorise that a year is a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but it’s an eternity for nationhood. There isn’t much room for naivety. We lost. 

Read the full response and listen to Hovsep’s playlist of Armenian music ︎ 

GUEST CURATOR’S BIO

Hovsep is an Armenian musician and founder of HyperKavkaz, a label spotlighting diverse talent from the Caucasus region. As part of his response, he compiled a playlist of Armenian music with the inherent feel of sorrow and glimpses of hope.