Tonino Guerra – Armenia Has Completely Changed Me

We offer to your attention a fragment from the film “Autumn of the wizard” by directors Ruben and Vahe Gevorkiants dedicated to late Italian poet, writer, and screenwriter Antonio “Tonino” Guerra.

“Armenia is the only place that has changed me. Completely, I would say. I, of course, have seen the wonders of the world and artworks in various corners of the world. All that filled me with amazement, but it was Armenia that changed me.

What excited me particularly? I admired the power of weakness. Those monasteries built by the hands of the monks who managed to dissolve and soften rocks with prayers.

The History Museum in Yerevan filled me with time and turned me into dust. I stopped by a wooden carriage with large wheels. The director of the museum told me that it was a mourning carriage aged 2,000 years. Everything I saw was over 2,000 years old, dated back to at least 1000 BC.

And then, when I was traveling around Armenia, behind me were all those millennia. The time I sensed in Armenia was with me. I returned 2-3 months ago and still feel the influence of the days spent in Armenia.

From time to time, I dive into the silence of those temples, into their secret conversation. And those monks that had made miracles with their prayers are so humble that I walked over their graves because they are buried beneath the entrance of the temple.

I, of course, will never forget that white veil of Ararat which is always before the eyes of the Armenians. Every European, every human being has to for at least a day arrive in Armenia to bathe in the clouds of its spirituality. In Armenia, time makes space, and those who visit Armenia become a little bit Armenians.

I sense that my arrival in Armenia is the beginning of my vertical journey, a journey heavenward.”

Tonino Guerra about Armenia