After winning fourth place at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Basque filmmaker Juanmi Gutiérrez’s documentary film “Fabrics in the Branches” (Telas en las ramas) will be shown for the first time today in front of 40,000 students, lecturers and professors of the University of Alicante.

According to Hayern Aysor, citizen of Alicante Hasmik Kocharyan, who stars in the film, told Sputnik Արմենիա that Juami came up with the idea of making a film devoted to Armenia and the Armenians after visiting Armenia. Charmed by the history and activities of the Armenians and the nature in Armenia, he decided that he definitely had to tell people about what he had seen.

The 89-minute documentary presents Armenians living in Armenia and abroad. They talk about their relatives who were saved from the Armenian massacres perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire by a miracle.

It is safe to say that the film is mainly about not only Armenians scattered across the globe, but also the history of the Armenian people in its entirety. The film also stars famous Lebanese-Armenian violinist Ara Malikian.

The filmmaker also talks about the Armenian version of the Bible that he found in one of the cathedrals in the Land of the Basques.

“Juanmi Gutiérrez has always been interested in the history of Armenia. In fact, the Parliament of the Basques was the first in Spain to recognize the Armenian Genocide in 2007. The first Armenian cross-stone in Alicante was placed in 2008,” Hasmik Kocharyan said.

The title of the film wasn’t selected by chance. The fabrics symbolize the Armenians scattered across the globe, and the branches (“the tragic story”) unite them all.

The film was produced in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante) and Armenia (Garni, Geghard, Oshakan and Yerevan) between 2015 and 2016.

Mariam Simonyan

4^th year student of the Faculty of International Relations at Yerevan State University