Armenian filmmaker’s Oscar nominated “The Other Side of Home”

The United State based Armenian director Nare Mkrtchyan’s documentary “The Other Side of Home” has been nominated for an Academy Award, Kom News reports.

The documentary is about a Turkish woman, Maya, who discovers that her great grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. As Maya wrestles with this new reality, she comes to embody the conflict that remains unresolved between the two people. She has two conflicting identities: one that suffers and the other that denies the suffering and its causes.

The Other Side of Home is a documentary that follows Maya as she goes to Armenia to take part in the 100th commemoration of the Genocide and to explore her new-found roots. This film is a universal story of identity, denial, and how the experience of genocide creates a ripple effect for future generations on both sides.

The Armenian film-maker says, “my grandparents were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, so the genocide has always been a part of me. My whole life I wanted to make a film about the Armenian Genocide, but I didn’t want to make a historical documentary film about 1915. I wanted to tell a human story, a story about something that happened 100 years ago and how it still affects us today on both sides of the conflict,” in an interview.

“100 years after the genocide I was on my way to Turkey to meet with a Turkish woman named Maya who found out that she has Armenian heritage. It was fascinating to me that this woman came to embody the conflict: with one side that denied the genocide while the other side suffered.” she adds.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the field of Documentary Short Subject contenders for the 89th Academy Awards has been narrowed to 10 films, of which 5 will earn Oscar nominations.

https://youtu.be/fYxu5Gn07rc