“What Will Become of Us” Film and Post Screening Discussion

“What Will Become of Us” Film and Post Screening Discussion with filmmaker Stephanie Ayanian, Rev. Fr. Hratch Sargsyan, and Anthony Barsamian in conversation with Dr. Mark Cole

Sunday, November 7, 2021
3:00-4:30pm
Zoom | Registration ends 30 minutes before the start of the program

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Classrooms Without Borders and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage are excited to offer the opportunity to watch the film “What Will Become of Us” and engage in a post-film discussion with the documentary filmmaker Stephanie Ayanian, Rev. Fr. Hratch Sargsyan, and Anthony Barsamian in conversation with Dr. Mark Cole.

This is the first program in this special film series co-sponsored by

A 60-Minute Feature Documentary about Armenians in America

100 years ago, Armenians were nearly annihilated by Genocide. Today, often unrecognized, it remains defining – but the long shadow of the Genocide creates a burden for young Armenian Americans that discourages them from taking up their culture. What Will Become of Us follows six Armenian Americans – famous and otherwise – as they navigate the 100th anniversary of the Genocide, forging identities for the next 100 years. How can Armenian Americans honor their past, while unshackling themselves from its trauma?

In 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a genocide by the Ottoman Turks. One of the world’s ancient civilizations was nearly destroyed. Today, many countries, including Turkey and the United States, do not recognize the Genocide because it is geopolitically inconvenient. Without recognition, the long shadow of genocide persists.

For Armenian Americans, the ‘long shadow’ of genocide is paralyzing. In an effort to preserve what was saved, successive generations hold-fast to a pre-genocide conception of culture, an idea frozen in time. The innovation needed to create a flourishing future is stymied by culturally-imposed litmus tests. The future of Armenian-American culture is in danger.

What Will Become of Us moves past stayed notions of what it means to be a ‘good Armenian.’ In three dramatic acts, the characters in What Will Become of Us travel through the American landscape while grappling with their identities and the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Their interwoven stories build on one-another to create a cohesive narrative where the past and future are in constant tension.

This is a story relatable to all immigrant communities who have faced past horrors. How can a culture pay respect to its past without being limited by it? How can a culture give individuals the freedom to define their own identities and collectively forge a hopeful future? This is not a film about genocide, but about how to thrive despite it.

Stephanie Ayanian
Stephanie Ayanian is a film producer and director. Her documentary, What Will Become of Us, focuses on a small ethnic group grappling with how to maintain their cultural identities in the melting pot of America 100 years after genocide. She is currently in post production on her next film, No Difference Between Us, that shares the story of Father Armenag, an Armenian-Catholic priest in Los Angeles who works tirelessly to aid Christian and Muslim refugees escaping the atrocities in Syria to secure their lives in America.

She produced the independent feature Kinderwald, an Official Selection of Munich International, Seattle International, Napa Valley, and Slamdance film festivals. Ayanian co-owns storyshop, an independent production house for creative media. Before starting storyshop, Ayanian worked as a Senior Producer/Director for Penn State Public Broadcasting where she was the producer and co-director of Liquid Assets: The Story of Our Water Infrastructure, for which she received the American Association of Engineering Societies Award for Journalism. The feature documentary was shown on 717 public television stations with a total of 1800 broadcasts in a 12-month period. She also produced and co-directed the Geospatial Revolution Project, which was released episodically on the web and has screened worldwide. She holds an MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University and a BA in Film and Video from the Pennsylvania State University.

She is a third-generation Armenian American. Her grandparents survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as children, grew up in the Armenian ghettos of Marseille, France, and came to reestablish their community in Fresno, California. Her bedtime stories were often of her grandmother’s childhood—the Genocide, the kidnapping of her family members, the reuniting, and the refugee camps.

Rev. Fr. Hratch Sargsyan
The Rev. Fr. Hratch Sargsyan was born in Armavir, Armenia, one of two sons of Simon and Zmroukhd Sargsyan. He was christened Hovhannes, and received his early education in local Armenian schools.

In 2000, he felt the calling to become a priest and was admitted to the Vaskenian Theological Seminary in Sevan, where he studied for four years and received a bachelor’s degree in theology. Meanwhile he served as the canon sacrist of Soorp Arakelotz Church adjacent to the seminary, where he was responsible for the care and maintenance of the church and for assisting with services. In 2002, the young Hovhannes was ordained to the rank of acolyte at Holy Etchmiadzin by Archbishop Nerses Bozabalian of blessed memory.

Following the completion of the bachelor’s program at the Vaskenian Theological Seminary, Fr. Hratch continued his studies at the Gevorgyan Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin. During this period, he also worked on preparing radio programs on religious subjects for transmission throughout Armenia. On February 23, 2006, on the Feast of Sts. Vartanantz, Archbishop Bozabalian ordained the young acolyte to the diaconate. He graduated from the Gevorgyan Seminary that same year with a master’s degree in theology.

At Holy Etchmiadzin, Fr. Hratch was appointed to the position of General Secretary in the Interchurch/Ecumenical Department, where his duties included correspondence and public relations. Parallel to assuming the new position, he took English language courses at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan, and served as a deacon at Yerevan’s Holy Trinity Church.

On June 24, 2007, Hovhannes Sargsyan was ordained to the holy priesthood by Archbishop Vicken Aykazian at Holy Etchmiadzin, and given the priestly name “Hratch.” The newly ordained priest began serving at St. Hovhannes Church in Sisyan in southern Armenia. Later he returned to Yerevan to serve as assistant pastor at Holy Trinity Church for one year.

In 2008, His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, assigned Fr. Hratch to serve as an intern in the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. At the direction of Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate of the Eastern Diocese, Fr. Hratch became the intern priest at St. John Armenian Church of Southfield, MI. He served the parish for almost two years under the guidance of its pastor, the Rev. Fr. Garabed Kochakian. During this time, Fr. Hratch continued to study English and successfully completed a five-month program in Clinical Pastoral Education at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit, MI. He also made pastoral visits to other parishes in the Eastern Diocese.

Upon the completion of his internship, Fr. Hratch became the pastor of St. Sahag Armenian Church in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. During the summer of 2011, he was also the assistant director of the Diocesan Summer Camp program. On September 1, 2011, Fr. Hratch became the pastor of St. Gregory of Narek Armenian Church of Richmond Heights, OH.

Fr. Hratch is married to Yn. Naira Azatyan. They are the proud parents of two daughters, Tatev and Mane.

Anthony Barsamian
Anthony Barsamian is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Suffolk University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. Anthony is Managing Partner for over 20 years of Hutchings Barsamian Mandelcorn, LLP., an 8 attorney firm concentrating on Business and Commercial Transactions, Estate and Tax, and Family Succession Planning located in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.

Anthony has been a Board Member of the Armenian Assembly of America since 2002 and served as Vice Chair from 2002-2004, Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2004-2006 and is currently co-chair of the Board of Trustees beginning in 2015 to the present. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Armenia Tree Project since 2006, a reforestation and rural development project which has planted and monitored over 6.5 million trees in Armenia.

Anthony has recently completed a three-year term as the first Armenian American President of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the oldest Christian ecumenical organization in the US, founded in 1903. He also has represented the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church as a Delegate on the Board of the National Council of Churches for 12 years and served two years as the chair of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee.

Anthony also serves on the Political Science Advisory Board for the Social and Behavioral Science Department of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Anthony began traveling regularly to Armenia in 1987.

He is a member of the executive board of World Link for Law, a network of International Law Firms located in 70 countries. He sits on various for-profit and non-profit boards and organization and frequently speaks and regularly lectures on Estate and Tax, and to various groups on Estate and Family Succession Planning and non-profit advocacy organization throughout the United States and Canada.

Dr. Mark Cole- moderator
Dr. Cole began teaching in the History Department at Cleveland State University in Fall 2014. As of Summer 2021 he is also the Executive Director of the Ohio Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education. Dr. Cole specializes in modern Europe and Germany, specifically the history of Nazism and the Holocaust, Jewish Studies, as well as the histories of consumption and food more generally. He has presented his research across the United States as well as in Germany and Israel. He has been a Fellow of the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University. When not changing the world one student mind at a time, he enjoys working with his hands, cooking, traveling, and playing pocket billiards. He has one wife, three daughters, and a dog.

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