Armenia and the Armenian Genocide in the Eyes of a Basque – Juanmi Gutierrez

Juanmi Gutierrez has planned to shoot a film about Armenian and Armenians ever since he had visited Armenia. Charmed with the history and way of life or Armenians as well as the nature of Armenia, he decided to tell about what he had seen.

The documentary film “Telas en las ramas” (“Flaps on a branch”) ranked fourth at a recent festival in San Sebastián. The approximately 89-minute documentary presents Armenians from both Armenia and other countries who tell the stories of their relatives who had miraculously escaped the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

In a sense, the main heroes of the documentary are not only the Armenians scattered around the world but the history of Armenia itself as well. A renowned Lebanese violinist Ara Malikyan also starred in the documentary.

Among the multitude of artifacts of the Armenian religion and culture, Gutierrez tells about the Bible written in the Armenian language. This Bible was discovered in one of the temples of the Basque Country. By the way, the Basque Country is the first community in Spain that officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2007.

The name of the documentary is symbolical: it resembles the Armenians (flaps) scattered around the world yet united by their tragic history (the branch).

The documentary has been filmed in 2015 – 16 in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante) and Armenia (Garni, Geghard, Oshakan, Yerevan).