Mattia Unal is a young Aramaean with Swiss nationality and the son of a Syriac Orthodox priest in the Aramaean community in Italian-speaking Switzerland. From an early age, his identity has been shaped by the use of the Aramaic language and religion. Mattia’s awareness of his origins is, however, limited to what he has learned from his parents, who fled from their country to Switzerland in the early 1980s.
Mattia and his father decide therefore to go on a journey, visiting the land of their family: Tur Abdin, “Mountain of the Servants of God”. The Legacy of Silence offers a personal view of the lives of Aramaean people, in the Diaspora and in their homeland, in the present and the past, in both the younger and the older generations, creating a picture of how an ethnic and religious minority in Turkey has lived and continues to live on today.
Watch the documentary here!
Director: Nadia Ambrosi et Patrik Soergel | Producer: Amka Films Productions
Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2009 | Story Teller's Country: Switzerland
