CAPITOL HILL SCREENING, ANTI-GENOCIDE DOCUMENTARY ‘SCREAMERS’

Documentary Featuring Grammy Award-Winning Rock Band "System of a Down" Traces the History of Modern Day Genocide, including the Holocaust, Armenian Genocide and Darfur

January 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC – SCREAMERS, the gripping documentary about the multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning band “System Of A Down’s” campaign to end the cycle of genocide, will be screened before a Congressional audience on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, January 17th, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The evening’s program – which is being hosted by Congressmen Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Save Darfur, the ANCA Endowment, and the Raffy Manoukian Charity – will start with a 6:30 pm reception, continue with a 7:30 pm screening, and conclude with a discussion with the film’s director Carla Garapedian and special guests. It will take place in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress. (Independence Ave SE, between 1st and 2nd Streets)

“SCREAMERS is about exposing the denial of all genocide, Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Iraqi Kurds and the current horror in Darfur,” said Garapedian. “It is about making sure the same critical message George Clooney and Don Cheadle are ‘screaming’ about is heard, that these atrocities ‘never happen again.’ And I believe, it is this generation, the ‘screamers’, who will make sure all genocide is recognized and ends, because ‘screamers’ will no longer tolerate or accept previous generations of politicians and humanitarians who have so miserably failed them.”

“Adolph Hitler used the Armenian Genocide as a blueprint for the Holocaust, silencing the potential reservations of his generals by asking the chilling question: ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians,'” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “These hateful words, inscribed on the walls of the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial, remind us all of the compelling moral cause of our time – the message delivered so clearly and powerfully by SCREAMERS – that we must end forever the cycle of genocide.”

SCREAMERS debuted at the American Film Institute Film Festival on November 2nd and won the coveted AFI Audience Award. On hand for the opening were Garapedian, “System Of A Down” band members Serj Tankian, John Dolmayan and Shavo Odadjian, producers Pete McAlevey and Tim Swain, sponsor Raffy Manoukian of the Raffy Manoukian Charity and a host of genocide recognition and prevention activists from the ANCA, Save Darfur, and other groups.

SCREAMERS is a production of MG2 productions in association with BBC Television and The Raffi Manoukian Charity. Garapedian, a veteran reporter who has made a career of covering the most difficult stories, from Chechenya to repression in Afghanistan, follows the European tour of “System Of A Down” and their ongoing efforts, through music and activism, to raise awareness about denial of all genocide, tracing the band members’ own personal journey of their grandparents surviving the Armenian Genocide and its legacy of a century of atrocities. The film, distributed by Maya Entertainment, is currently playing in the Los Angeles area and will open on January 26th in New York City, Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago and Detroit.

On December 22nd, during an ANCA-Western Region press conference outside of the opening of the film in Encino, California, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Garapedian spoke to the media about ending the cycle of genocide, from the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to the Genocide going on in Darfur today.

To learn more about System Of a Down’s Armenian Genocide recognition advocacy tour in Washington, DC earlier this April: https://anca.org/press-release/system-of-a-down-press-for-armenian-genocide-recognition-during-three-day-washington-dc-advocacy-tour/

To RSVP for the screening, please contact the ANCA at shooshan@anca.org or (202) 742-8703.

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For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Email / Tel: (202) 775-1918 / (703) 585-8254 cell
Armenian National Committee of America
1711 N Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036
Tel. (202) 775-1918 * Fax. (202) 775-5648 * Email.anca@anca.org
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