Anni Movsisyan | Artist & Composer

Original soundtrack for I Am Your Ghost (2021), a film by Lee Williams Boudakian

I Am Your Ghost documents the Canadian-Armenian filmmaker's grandmother, Yolande (affectionately known as Nene), in her last year of life. Through short vignettes, archival footage and interviews with family, the film explores themes of maternal relationships, grief, and intergenerational care. As a queer and trans diasporan, and as a descendant of Armenian Genocide survivors, Boudakian is also preoccupied in finding ways to archive and present the stories of Armenian women and queer people, which are all too often lost to history.

The score for the film is inspired by Armenian folk music, much of which was erased along with the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Survivors and musicians like Komitas, an Armenian priest, composer and pioneer of ethnomusicology, saved some folk songs from erasure, and I have them to thank for allowing me to study and research about Armenian music. While the film does not overtly speak to Armenian histories, the choice to include layers of historical context within the film through music highlights how the larger political conditions affect us across generations, and our relationships with each other.

 

Instruments used:
Violin, setar, oud, tombak and vocals.

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All parts recorded and mixed by myself.