BOSTON — Bared Maronian, the Emmy-award-winning documentarian, in June hosted a private screening of his most recent work, tentatively titled “Genocide 2.0: Artsakh Ethnic Cleansing,” at the West Newton Cinema in Newton. The documentary focuses the atrocities that took place in Karabakh (Artsakh), between 2020, when Armenia lost the war and the majority of the enclave to Azerbaijan, until 2023, when the remaining portion of the region was overrun by Azerbaijani forces, leading to the forced exodus of the entire population.
For Maronian, the screening was part focus group and part community outreach.
Maronian’s previous documentaries on Armenian issues include “Bloodless: The Path to Democracy,” about the Velvet Revolution of 2018, “Women of 1915,” and “Orphans of the Genocide.”
“Genocide 2.0” was harrowing, featuring footage from several photojournalists who had captured scenes of bombs raining down on Stepanakert and their aftereffects. In addition, Maronian included interviews with survivors, including a mother, whose 8-year-old daughter had been killed by one of the bombs. In her grief, the woman, who had later fled to Armenia with the rest of her family, wanted only to get her daughter’s body back so that she could be buried in Armenia.
Other footage in “Genocide 2.0” included those shot by Azerbaijani soldiers, who during the 2020 war, devised ways not only to torture the Armenian soldiers they had captured, but to also inflict maximum pain on the surviving families by recording videos of themselves on the victims’ phones, committing the most heinous crimes imaginable, and then sending them to the families. The level of brutality and cruelty is barely comprehensible.
In addition, the documentary features interviews with Luis Moreno Ocampo (First Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (2003- 2012), Baroness Caroline Cox, Member, British House of Lords (Founder, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), David L Phillips, Adjunct Professor (Conflict Resolution and Mediation, Georgetown University), Judge Gassia Apkarian (California State Jurist Orange County, CA), Karnig Kerkonian (International Lawyer), Michael Rubin, Senior Fellow (American Enterprise Institute, Director of Policy Analysis, Middle East Forum (MEF)), Thomas Becker, PhD (Legal and Policy Director, University Network for Human Rights), Joel Veldkamp, PhD (Christian Solidarity International), Ambassador Sam Brownback (Former Ambassador at Large, International Religious Freedom) and Simon Meghakyan, PhD (Security and Defense Studies/Heritage Crime, Cranfield University).