On the Old Roman Road

Levon is a writer of Armenian extraction who lives in Rotterdam. He thinks back on his life in his homeland. About his brother-in-law Manuk who robbed dead Turks, about a brilliant Kurdish musician, a butcher with a red beard, a 17-year-old girl with chestnut-coloured skin, a concubine and a Turkish Apollo with eight wives who likes burying himself in hot ash. His memory is also populated by beautiful thoroughbred horses, stray dogs, camel drivers, soldiers and Turkish policemen. The images of the film are contained in poetic, almost surrealist scenes of magic love and political cruelty. This is contrasted with reality in Rotterdam: a modern crime story with Armenian terrorists and a Kurdish tragedy. (Catalogue 30th Film Festival Rotterdam, 2001)