LYS ANZIA of WNN interviews SONA TATOYAN
This image of an Armenian woman rocking her baby in a wooden cradle was taken in an unknown location inside the Ottoman empire in 1908. Taken before the official outbreak of the Armenian Genocide as great suffering and death followed Armenian families as they were forced to be part of the ‘Long Walk’, this photo shows the ‘too often’ challenges of life for many Armenians and the hardships in the years leading up to April 24, 1915 PHOTO/Gallica-BNF-FR/Bibliotheque National de France
She believes in a new future for all Armenians.That’s what Syrian/Armenian/American actor and film producer Sona Tatoyan shared in a recent one-on-one interview with WNN – Women News Network.
Tatoyan, as producer of an inspired upcoming film based on the book “Three Apples Fell from Heaven,” is working to capture a vision that brings the words of author Micheline Aharonian Marcom alive. “Three Apples Fell from Heaven” exists to help heal the collective heart of all us who have been in pain, shares Tatoyan in her recent interview.
It’s hard to believe that one hundred years has passed since the wheel of mass atrocity began in earnest on April 24, 1915. Taking an exact count on the death and suffering is impossible but global experts indicate numbers up to 1.5 million murdered Armenians lost their lives under Ottoman rule.
Today this act has not gone unrecognized. Twenty-one countries have formally recognized the reality of the Armenian Genocide. This does not include Germany who has plans to jump in as a new nation recognizing the genocide officially on Friday April 24. Each nation must recognize the genocide through government resolutions, laws and declarations.
Actor and film producer Sona Tatoyan PHOTO/S. Tatoyan
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Lys Anzia with WNN – Women News Network: Let’s begin by talking about ghosts and the millions of ghosts of those who have lost their lives within the specter of the Armenian genocide. Most often it is the voice of women who are the ‘memory keepers’ of atrocity. There’s no doubt as we reach the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the story of “Three Apples Fell From Heaven” shares with us the beauty and agony of suffering itself. Can you talk about this with us? Why do you think it’s so often the women in the family who have been the ones holding the memories of genocide?
Sona Tatoyan:
“The beauty and agony of suffering. Yes. Well, from my own life experiences I have seen how pain is a catalyst for going deep into uncovering parts of myself. Pain makes us stop. Makes us look. Makes us have to face the thing that ails us.
This is the process of growth and evolution, if we allow it to be. In our myths, from the goddess Innana to Persephone and on and on, we tell of the need to go into the underworld and lose what we have in order to rebuild it in truth and strength. It is the process of the human journey, from darkness to light.
When we crack open, we have the opportunity to see experience our vulnerability, which is our humanity. The understanding [is] that all is one, underneath the play/story or ‘maya’ of daily life.
I cannot speak for all womankind, but I will say that for me storytelling is what connects me to myself and to the rest of us having this very human experience.
Perhaps women have also been allowed to express their emotions, traditionally. Society puts a pressure on men to be stoic, strong and move forward.
The irony is, if we don’t go into the pain, we cannot get out of it and move forward. What you resist, persists I’ve heard it said. But we have to understand that it is a movement– not a resting place, pain! Storytelling, the passing on of memory, is a medium for that movement”
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