Opening December 8th in Los Angeles from Maya Releasing before its national launch in early January, the new documentary Screamers, directed by Carla Garapedian, is the first of several special interest films the company hopes to distribute in the United States each year.
In Screamers, Garapedian traces the history of modern-day genocide - and genocide denial - from the fertile Holy Mountains of Anatolia to the current atrocities in Darfur. The documentary is as shattering as it is powerful, which includes live performance footage and interviews with System Of A Down, the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning rock band, all of whose members are of Armenian descent. The film is laced with seven of the band's songs from Holy Mountains to P.L.U.C.K. to the #1 hit B.Y.O.B. that illuminate the band?s views on political and social issues.
Garapedian met System Of A Down, who endorsed the film's important message -- how the world's denial of the Turk's Armenian genocide contributed to the continuing crisis of international genocides ever since from Armenia to Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and present-day Darfur.
The cameras followed the band on their European and American tours last summer and fall as they promoted their new, two-album set, Mezmerize and Hypnotize. (Their collective record sales have totaled over 16 million albums worldwide.) In the US, they attempted to track down House Speaker Dennis Hastert (who, according to Vanity Fair magazine, has taken $500,000 in campaign contributions from the Turks in return for allowing an Armenian genocide recognition bill from ever being passed by the House of Representatives), visited a 100-year-old survivor and, most importantly, spent time with lead singer Serj Tankian's grandfather, one of the few remaining eyewitnesses of the genocide.
Screamers is produced by Nick de Grunwald, Tim Swain, Carla Garapedian and Peter McAlevey.
"Screamers is an important, relevant, timely and interesting film, said Maya Releasing President Benson, just the sort of picture we want to distribute. Though our initial goal was to expressly serve the entertainment needs of American-born, English-speaking Latinos, the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and the demographic with the highest percentage of frequent moviegoers, once we saw Screamers, we knew we were going to have to slightly re-adjust our thinking. It's an excellent film with great playability and a very strong and varied audience base of human rights proponents, Armenians and the legions of System Of A Down fans. It's a great debut for the company."
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