Aram (film)

Aram
Aram Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Robert Kechichian
Produced by	Jean-Philippe Andraca Christian Bérard
Written by	Robert Kechichian
Starring	Simon Abkarian Lubna Azabal Mathieu Demy
Edited by	Juliette Welfling Marie-Pierre Frappier
Distributed by	BAC Films
Release date	November 27, 2002
Running time	87 min.
Country	France
Language	French Armenian

Aram is a 2002 French action film. It takes place in France between 1993 and 2001, wherein French-Armenian fighters supply arms to Nagorno-Karabakh and kill a visiting Turkish general. The film was released in 2002 in theatres in France, and made its American debut in 2004 at the Armenian Film Festival in San Francisco.

Historically, the film is loosely based on the militant activity of small groups of Armenian youth in mostly Western Europe beginning in 1973 and lasting until 1994 during which Armenian assassins killed representatives of the state of Turkey in order to gain public awareness of the forgotten (at the time) Armenian Genocide.

The film opens with scenes from the Armenian positions during the Karabakh war, sometime between 1988 and 1993. Armenian women, children, and the elderly are shown hiding in bomb shelters and being airlifted to safety.

Aram Sarkissian is a young French-Armenian member of AGJSA who has abruptly left his family in Paris and gone to fight in the war of liberation.

Near the end of the war, around October 1993, Aram returns to France to live a “normal life” again. However, upon his return, Aram finds out that his younger brother, Levon, is preparing a new assassination, this time against the general of the Turkish Army, Mr Azbalan Djelik, who is visiting France. Aram fiercely opposes this new plan, claiming that the Armenian struggle lies in Artsakh. Levon, however is firm in his stance and considers Aram to be a coward.

Levon moves forward with the plan, and Aram, it turns out, has reluctantly agreed. During the evening, the Mercedes in which the Turkish general is riding is ambushed by 3 masked gunmen. The assassins shoot and kill three of the four passengers. The fourth man, sitting in the passenger's seat, pretended to be dead from the impact, and as the assassins flee, shoots Levon, immobilizing him. This fourth man is the Turkish general's aide-de-camp, Colonel Talaat Sonlez. The assassins shoot him and flee. The AGJSA claims responsibility for the attack, justifying it by reminding that General Djelik was the Grey Wolves boss, a Turkish fascist organization.