Amerikatsi Review: From America to Soviet Armenia
The New York Times The actor-director Michael Goorjian explores the urge to reconnect with ones roots in this movie about an American who moves to Soviet Armenia.
In the late 1940s, the Soviet Union invited Armenians living abroad to resettle in Soviet Armenia. In Amerikatsi, the actor-director Michael Goorjian imagines one such journey and finds an unusual way to express the aching urge to reconnect with ones roots.
Goorjian plays Charlie, a nave, bumbling American who returns to Armenia years after being spirited away as a boy during the genocide. Despite befriending a Soviet officials wife (Nelli Uvarova), he gets thrown in jail as a suspicious interloper. Charlie languishes behind prison walls, and is mocked and beaten by guards. As awful as that sounds, the films tone stays on the light side, even hokey, warmed by Charlies hopes.
