SCREAMERS is a documentary feature by Carla Garapedian examining why genocides keep occurring — from the Armenian genocide in 1915, to the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur. With the contribution of the band SYSTEM OF A DOWN, whose members are all grandchildren of genocide survivors, the film traces the locations and stories of genocide in the last century. Through the arguments of Pulitzer prize-winning author Samantha Power (“A Problem from Hell – America and the Age of Genocide”), the personal stories of genocide survivors, policy critics and whistleblowers – the “screamers” – the film dissects the problem of genocide denial and Power’s thesis that America’s interest has always been to stay neutral, no matter how wide-scale the carnage, with successive Presidents conspiring to turn a blind eye to genocides as they are happening. After the Holocaust, we may say ‘never again’ — but we don’t mean it.
Conceived by longtime collaborators Peter McAlevey and Garapedian (herself an Armenian-American and documentary director of LIFTING THE VEIL and CHILDREN OF THE SECRET STATE) SCREAMERS features interviews and concert footage with SYSTEM OF A DOWN, lead singer Serj Tankian’s grandfather – one of the few remaining eyewitnesses of the genocide, a 100-year-old survivor of the genocide and an unsettling scene with House Speaker Dennis Hastert who, according to Vanity Fair magazine, has taken $500,000 in campaign contributions from the Turks in return for allowing an Armenian genocide recognition bill from ever being passed by the House of Representatives.
