GLENDALE, Calif.— The Armenian National Committee – Western Region (ANC-WR) has announced that documentary filmmaker Carla Garapedian will serve as a panelist in “Lights, Camera, Activate,” which will cover the ways in which film, music and the arts can be used to promote grassroots activism. The presentation is part of the ANC Grassroots weekend that will take place from Friday, November 25 to Sunday, November 27, 2011, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel.

Carla Garapedian is the Director and Producer of the film “Screamers,” featuring the world-renowned band System of a Down, which went on nationwide theatrical release in the United States and Canada in 2006-7. The critically acclaimed film debuted at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles in November 2006 where it won the coveted Audience Award. After its theatrical release, the film was shown at film festivals around the world and screenings sponsored by the U.S. Congress, British, Canadian and European Parliaments, as well as the United Nations. With its many film reviews, newspaper features and internet discussions, the film changed the public debate on recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Working from Britain, Carla Garapedian has been a Director and Producer since 1989. She earned her Ph.D. in international relations at the London School of Economics before working as a producer, director and correspondent based in London. She is the only American to anchor BBC World News. She has been a correspondent for NBC Sunrise, NBC Nightly News and CNBC in London.

She made her name as an international documentary director with “Lifting the Veil,” a film about the brutal treatment of women in Afghanistan. In “Dying for the President,” she made world headlines in 2000 by sneaking into Chechnya to document the Russian army’s single worst war crime – the bombing of a white-flag refugee convoy.

She narrated the Armenian genocide films, “Voices from the Lake” and “The River Ran Red” by acclaimed filmmaker, J. Michael Hagopian, as well as co-wrote his award-winning film “Germany and the Secret Genocide.” Garapedian is leading the Armenian Film Foundation’s project to digitize a rare collection of 400 Armenian genocide survivor interviews into Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation visual history archive, which currently holds 52,000 Holocaust survivor interviews. This unique project will make available, for the first time, the testimonials of Armenian genocide survivors to universities around the world. Along with testimonials from the Rwandan, Cambodian and Bosnian genocides, this archive will be one of the largest genocide testimonial archives in the world.

She is the founder of the Pomegranate Foundation, which holds an annual student film festival, the Pomegranate Student Film Fest. The Foundation’s goal is to raise awareness about genocide, and all forms of intolerance, by supporting young filmmakers and other artists.

Garapedian joins Serj Tankian, Eric Nazarian and Suzanne Khardalian on this panel of film and music luminaries, which will be moderated by Eric V. Hachikian.

Hachikian is an Armenian-American composer, whose music has been hailed by the New York Times as “lovely and original.” His compositions and orchestrations can be heard in a variety of major motion pictures and network television shows. As Creative Director and Partner of Soundcat Productions, a music house based in New York and Los Angeles, Hachikian has written and produced music for national and international ad campaigns. Hachikian has also written for Off-Broadway productions of “New House Under Construction”, “A Christmas Carol” and “The Snow Maiden”, and his compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Pops Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Boston Pops Orchestra, and in such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and in Boston’s Symphony Hall.

Hachikian studied Nadia Boulanger’s methods in Paris, France, and has also studied composition and audio engineering at the Aspen and Tanglewood Music Festivals. He received his Bachelor of Music with highest honors from the University of Michigan, and his Master of Arts from New York University. Also a performer, Eric plays the piano and tuba, is a classically trained vocalist, and an accomplished conductor. His film “Voyage to Amasia” about his grandmother’s exile from her village in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide, and his subsequent return to that village in modern day Turkey, will premiere at the Pomegranate Film Festival in Toronto on December 4.

The three-day ANC Grassroots program is a groundbreaking weekend of workshops and panel presentations that will educate the community about civic leadership arising from grassroots efforts. This powerful event encompassing Armenian economic, cultural and social issues with a number of dynamic speakers will provide activists with the tools to amplify the Hai Tahd message. ANC Grassroots will bookend the Armenian National Committee of America- Western Region (ANCA-WR) Annual Banquet, which will take place on Saturday, November 26 at 7 p.m.

The conference and Annual Banquet are open to interested individuals throughout the entire United States, and participants are encouraged to register early.

Due to a generous contribution by an anonymous donor the ANC has announced a significant reduction in ticket prices.

Tickets for ANC Grassroots, which includes the Friday night cocktail in the Starview Room; as well as conference sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which include breakfast, post-banquet dance, and the keynote luncheon on Sunday, are $49. Students with valid ID can purchase discounted tickets for $39.

Tickets for the Annual Banquet are $200. Students with valid ID can purchase discounted tickets for $150.

For more information, to register and purchase tickets, please visitwww.anca.org/ancgrassroots.

The Armenian National Committee-Western Region is the largest Armenian American grassroots community organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANC-WR works to promote understanding regarding issues of concern to the Armenian American community.

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