Multiculturalism, uprooting, migration and the life of the others… Giaour Neighbourhood, is about Diyarbakır, a once diverse city; and it is also about Mıgırdiç Margosyan, who forged iron with his hammer in this city until 1953 as an apprentice blacksmith and after that with his pen as “Master Margos from Diyarbakır”. Margosyan depicted old and new Diyarbakır and its forgotten social and cultural fabric with his poetic language. The documentary tells the journey of the Margosyan Family, whose members in 1915 were forced to migrate from Heredan, a distant village of Diyarbakır, and was torn up, uprooted–just like a myriad of Armenian families-only to come together again and settle in the Giaour Neighbourhood where Armenians used to live in Diyarbakir. The film also accounts Mıgırdiç Margosyan’s journey from Diyarbakır to Istanbul. “Diyarbakir, during its 5000 years of history, has witnessed migrations and pains–its fate is darkened just as its houses, mansions, streets, temples, walls are made of dark stones. And it is about Mıgırdiç Margosyan, who always carries the longing of this city within himself, and conveys this longing into our lives.” – Yusuf Kenan Beysülen |
