Press Release

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Unveiling the Artsakh Genocide, the Landmark Documentary ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues to Premiere in the Nation’s Capital

With a Journalist’s Point of View, Director Vic Gerami Meticulously Examines Azerbaijan’s and Turkiye’s Genocidal Attack and Ethnic Cleansing of the Indigenous Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) from 2020 to 2023

‘Never Again happened to Armenians-again. The world’s failure to hold Turkiye accountable for the Armenian Genocide, which started in the late 1800s, resulted in Erdogan’s authoritarian regime using its proxy sister nation, Azerbaijan, to commit the Artsakh Genocide, a continuation of their unfinished job. Similar to a century ago, Armenians were left alone, with world leaders and international organizations in deafening silence. At the same time, two powerful nations with hired jihadist terrorists massacred over 5,000 indigenous Armenians in their ancestral homeland of millennia. — Vic Gerami

LOS ANGELES — Director Vic Gerami’s multi-award-winning documentary feature film, titled initially Motherland, has been revised to add the last two years of the Artsakh Genocide. Renamed ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues, the film was an ‘Official Selection’ at 82 international film festivals and won 40 awards for ‘Best Documentary Feature Film.’

Gerami started making the film after Azerbaijan’s initial invasion of the Republic of Artsakh in September 2020, wrapped it when 90% of Artsakh was occupied, and released it in the summer of 2022.

In 2020, Azerbaijan, with declared assistance from Turkey, launched a large-scale offensive against Artsakh. Employing thousands of Turkish-paid jihadist mercenaries airlifted from terrorist camps in Syria, Libya, and Pakistan, Erdogan has empowered Azerbaijan’s war effort to magnify the violence already being perpetrated by the Azerbaijani Army against innocent children, women and men who, previously, had lived peacefully for generations in Artsakh.

The revised film includes the following bloody chapters in the not-so-distant history. Having massacred 5,000+ indigenous Armenians and occupied 90% of Artsakh, starting on December 12, 2022, over two years after invading Artsakh, Azerbaijan blockaded the Republic in an attempt to force the Armenians to flee their native land. Aliyev’s government ordered a group of fake self-styled environmental activists to set up a roadblock on the Lachin corridor, the sole overland route linking Artsakh with Armenia. Many of these so-called activists were later revealed to be connected with the Azerbaijani government. In the next nine months, Azerbaijan attempted to starve Armenians and drive them out of Artsakh.

To further intensify its siege, Azerbaijan drained the Sarsang Reservoir, a critical source of water for Artsakh that had been used for power generation and agriculture, to deprive Armenians of Artsakh. It was part of Aliyev’s strategy to displace the Armenian population forcibly.

Following Azerbaijan’s illegal blockade of Artsakh that starved 120,000 civilians, including 30,000 children, on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked military offensive on Artsakh in an attempt to subjugate the Republic’s ethnically Armenian population by force. Following a 24-hour assault that killed 200+ Armenians, the remaining 120,000 fled Artsakh and left for Armenia.

Gerami interviewed and featured more than a dozen members of Congress, dignitaries, and other high-profile pubic figures including Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), Baroness Caroline Anne Cox, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA), Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA), Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), Laguna Niguel, CA, Councilmember Stephanie Seraydarian Oddo, Israeli-Russian Journalist Alexander Lapshin, Republic of Armenia High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs Zareh Sinanyan, Head of ‘Bright Armenia’ Party Edmon Marukyan, Former Deputy Minister of Environment for the Republic of Armenia and Senior Advisor on Climate Change to the World Bank Group Dr. Irina Ghaplanyan, Co-Founder of Aznavour Foundation Nicolas Aznavour, CEO of Aznavour Foundation Kristina Aznavour, Professor Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Azerbaijani blogger and activist Mahammad Mirzali, and several Armenian journalists, veterans, and refugees. 

ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues tells the story of this ongoing tragic chapter through the lens of Armenian-American journalist and LGBTQ+ activist Vic Gerami. From a journalist’s perspective, ARTSAKH focuses the world’s attention on the atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by Azerbaijan and Turkey against Artsakh and Armenia. It chronicles the struggle of the Armenian people to come to terms with its fate, mourn the loss of over 5,000+ people, and pick up the pieces and carry on as they have for millennia. It includes interviews with war heroes, displaced refugees, high-profile American and Armenian elected officials, and ordinary people.

The film also accounts for the apathy of the greater world community, the hypocrisy of public figures who preach about human rights but show inaction when reality hits, and how the press is easily manipulated by a rogue nation’s campaign of hate, disinformation, and propaganda.

The annihilation of Armenian life in Artsakh was enabled by the inaction and indifference of those who might have prevented it. The United States and the European Union spoke loftily of universal human rights but did nothing for nine months while the people of Artsakh were starved. They did nothing to enforce the order of the International Court of Justice, demanding Azerbaijan to end its blockade. That inaction emboldened Azerbaijan to attack—as it will encourage others to do the same elsewhere. The Armenian Genocide continues…

Click here to watch the film’s trailer, and click here to watch the five-minute sizzle.

For more information, please visit the film’s website, ArtsakhDocumentary.com. High-resolution photos can be found here.

Vic Gerami is available for interviews. You can contact him at 310.880.8563 or vic@thebluntpost.com. 

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About Vic Gerami

Vic Gerami is an award-winning journalist, columnist, media commentator, editor, and publisher of The Blunt Post and the founder of the advocacy non-profit organization Truth And Accountability League (TAAL).  

Today, reaching national and international audiences, Gerami first built a foundation of knowledge and skills by learning the media industry during his years at Frontiers Magazine, followed by positions at LA Weekly and Voice Media Group. 

Gerami has interviewed more than one hundred members of Congress, countless celebrities, and other high-profile public figures. His recent interviews include Congressman Adam Schiff, Senator Bob Menendez, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Governor Howard Dean, Congresswoman Katie Porter, Congressman Brad Sherman, Congressman Mike Levin, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Congresswoman Judy Chu, among many others. You can listen to all the interviews here. 

Gerami also contributes to some of the nation’s most prominent publications, including the Windy City Times, Bay Area Reporter, Armenian Mirror-Spectator, The Advocate, The Immigrant Magazine, GoWeHo, Destination Luxury, OUT Traveler, and The Fight.

Gerami founded the Truth And Accountability League (TAAL), a 501©3 non-profit organization that advocates for Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia. TAAL monitors & addresses Armenophobia, extremism & bigotry around the globe on the level of media, including social media, public policy, academia, and intelligentsia. 

The Wall Street Journal featured Gerami as a ‘leading gay activist’ in its landmark 2008 coverage of opposition to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that for years denied same-sex couples in California the freedom to marry. In addition to his years of volunteer work as a leading advocate for marriage equality, Gerami served as a Planning Committee member for the historic Resist March in 2017. 

In 2015, Gerami was referenced in the landmark Supreme Court civil rights case, Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Please click here for more information about Vic Gerami.

Instagram: @vicgerami

Facebook: facebook.com/vic.gerami

Twitter: @vicgerami