Note d'intention LE MAS DES ALOUETTES

We love this film and are convinced that the audience will love it too, because it is a story with two very strong emotional aspects in a very trying human tragedy. The first, is tied to an ancient and ever present one, the family. An Armenian family where the destiny of its members come together: strength, the passion of a married couple, death, omens, an old charismatic head of the family, the impatient passion of youth waiting for love, the mysterious innocence of childhood, individual destinies that meet and clash in the big household of the Armenian town in Turkey, and in their “lark farm” which, is waiting to welcome a long attended brother who is in Italy. The lark farm is again brought back to its ancient splendour. During the festive wait, the family does not realize that darkness is about to cast a shadow over them. After years of peace and living together, the “Young Turks”, fanatics and racists, silently prepare a genocide: elimination of Armenians to a Turkey will only belong to the Turks.

And then the other touching moment in the film: a collective destiny that violently overwhelms, a terrible event of death, one of the most atrocious pages of the 20th century, which so often has faced atrocities.

Our film does not want to be a documentary on the forced exodus of women, old women, and children, a million and a half human beings who are led to death in the desert.

We evoke that event which our world is only too familiar with, in narrating about our characters, and by witnessing the transformation of their personalities, caused by pain.

One character, especially represents their humanity, their force of resistance, Nunik, the young, beautiful and mysterious Armenian who suddenly becomes an adult.

The entire film moves around her. She is a passionate, and she experiences two loves. The first is fascinating, impatient and fragile, an adolescent encounter, and the second is more incisive, intense and tragic, facing a reality which leads to maturity.

He is a young Turk soldier who leads the death walk of the Armenian destiny.

Their love cannot be, they cannot love each other. Its peak moment will take place during Nunik’s sacrifice. When she dies, the children will reach safety and flee to Italy.

In the name of Nunik, the young Turk soldier who so much loved her, three years later when the war is over, faces a court of justice and turns himself over, denouncing the holocaust of the Armenian people.

Paolo e Vittorio Taviani