The jubilee screening of the film “Zare” (1926), directed by the father of Armenian cinematography Hamo Beknazaryan, will be played on November 9 at Moscow Cinema Theatre in Yerevan.

The event is organized by Armenian National Film Academy. On exactly that date back in 1926 the film was first premiered. The Golden Apricot Fund for Cinema Development has recently initiated and realized the restoration of the film through digitalization, and the restored version of the film will be presented to the spectators at the jubilee event.

The film that was produced based Lazo’s short story, features a tragic love story in a Yezidi village, the life of the Kurdish residents, struggling against the representatives of Russia’s Czarist regime. Zare, a Kurdish girl, and Seydo, a young shepherd, live in the same village and love each other, but are faced with problems when village chief Temur wants to take Zare as his second wife.

Maria Tadevosyan (Zare), Hrachya Nersisyan (Saydo), Avet Avetisyan (Slo). Olga Gyulazyan (Lyafit Khanum), Michael Manvelyan (Msto), Nina Manucharyan (Nano) and other renowned actors played in the film.

One of Hamo Beknazaryan’s memoirs quotes the legendary Armenian director saying Zare took so much of his time, energy and dedication that he would never dare to direct any film throughout his career.

As the young Kurdish director Müjde Arslan once put it, Zare” was the first Kurdish film. “After this film, Kurdish cinema remained silent until 1991”.