Pomegranate Film Festival has slated Ani Hovannisian’s new documentary The Hidden Map for its 2019 program scheduled to kick off today in Toronto.

Prior to public screenings, The Hidden Map has been recognized with an ImpactDOCS award in an esteemed international documentary film competition. 

A broadcast journalist by education and training, Hovannisian directed and produced numerous true human-interest stories for television and other international audiences before setting out to make her first film.  

The Hidden Map was conceived when Ani, traveling  through historic Western Armenia with her father historian Richard G. Hovannisian and a small group led by Armen Aroyan, had a chance encounter with  an enigmatic  Scottish explorer, Steven SimCamera always in hand, Ani began following the steps of the solitary explorer and learned that he had been documenting the relics of the lost Armenian past for 30 years.  Though he had always traveled alone, almost invisiblySim agreed to set out together.    

The Armenian and Scotsman trek through the layered landscape, digging beneath the surface of modern-day Turkey to uncover the crumbled remnants and buried stories of the forbidden past.  He is consumed with finding and giving voice to the ruins before they disappear entirely. She is determined to come face to face with the ominous past, lifting long-silenced stories out of oblivion and people out of shadows as she reaches for home.  Together, they revealThe Hidden Map.

The documentary will be screened on Sunday, November 17 at the Hamazkayin theatre at AYC, Toronto.