AMERIKATSI

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Soviet Union invited Armenians exiled in the United States to return to their homeland and assist in the construction of a “new Armenia”. 313 "Amerikatsi" followed this call; most of them subsequently ended up in prison as alleged spies or "cosmopolitans". This is also the fate that befalls genocide survivor Charlie, the hero of this film. Not even his acquaintance with the wife of a high-ranking Red Army officer can save him from ending up behind bars. He serves a ten-year sentence spent between the Friday beatings in Ponchik’s torture cell and longing glances at the apartment opposite. The latter is the home of Tigran; no longer allowed to work as a painter because he has painted too many churches, he now makes ends meet as a prison guard and lives there together with his wife. Charlie shares in their lives, loves, passions, family celebrations and marital disputes as a third man. From the window of his prison cell he is merely an observer and yet still in the middle of it all.

It is thus that the years pass, between prison tyranny and an imagined home, Charlie is witness to affection and arguments, opulent parties and loneliness. A tragicomedy that makes only minimal use of the spoken word yet takes the power mechanisms of the Stalinist Soviet Union seriously enough to avoid slipping into escapist kitsch. The director himself plays the lead role and does so brilliantly.

Text: Bernd Buder

08.11.2024 | 19:00 | Stadhalle (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)

09.11.2024 | 13:00 | Kammerbühne (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)