Grandma’s Tattoos

Grandma's Tattoos is a powerful documentary that reveals the fate of thousands of forgotten women, mostly teenagers and young girls, who survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide but were forced into prostitution by their captors. Many of these women were tattooed as a permanent mark of their status. Filmmaker Suzanne Khardalian begins the film by remembering her grandmother: »Grandma Khanoum was not like everyone else. She had blue tattoos on her face and hands. Strange marks that frightened us children... She despised physical contact. She never hugged anyone, never gave kisses. And she always wore gloves, which hid her hands and her tattoos, and her secret.«
An important documentary work that breaks through decades of silence, Grandma›s Tattoos tells a personal story that is indeed universal – the fate of women in conflicts and wars.

Welcome

Jochen Böhler, Director of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

H.E. Mr. Armen Papikyan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Austria

Discussion

After the screening there will be a discussion with Suzanne Khardalian, film director, and Zuzanna Dziuban, Austrian Academy of Sciences, moderated by Éva Kovács (VWI).

Free admission
Ticket reservation under:
reservierung@filmarchiv.at