The Avalanche

In Eastern Turkey, in the Kurdish region of Van, snowfalls frequently prevent the inhabitants from travelling. A thick and dangerous pristine layer of snow covers the mountain peaks, serving as a reminder of the double meaning of the Kurdish word “Aşît”: avalanche and risk. Loosely inspired by Stefan Zweig’s novella The Royal Game, in which playing chess is depicted as a means to survive fascism, The Avalanche recounts the history of the Armenian genocide, a tragic event that is still contested by the Turkish state today. The filmmaker Pinar Öğrenci uses oral accounts, photographic archives, and present-day footage of the region to uncover the traces and traumas left by the Armenian people on their landscape, their habits and customs, and their memories. The seeming tranquillity of the scenery’s icy beauty is disturbed only by the sublime songs of the Armenian exile Hayrik Muradian, which tell of his people’s suffering and pay tribute to rugged landscapes of Van. The Avalanche is an essential piece of testimony; echoing the current stigmatisation of the Kurds, it warns us of history’s tendency to repeat itself.
Bastien Bento
> The Avalanche has been realized in the framework of documenta fifteen, Kassel, 2022.