Laurence Ritter

"The Armenian film Bonded Parallels tells two intersecting stories: a mother who gives life to a child at the cost of her own and a daughter who repeats a similar love story that once resulted in her own birth. The two ‘bonded parallel’ stories provide a close look at two different societies in entirely different time frames, and in doing that they bring unexpected similarities to the surface. On one side, there is the story of Hanna, who lives in a small village in Norway during World War II, waiting for her husband. Meanwhile, she meets Arakel, a Russian prisoner of war of Armenian origin and gives him asylum, an event that inevitably leads to a love affair. As for daughter Laura, love comes from a disobeying student. Her story takes place during the 1980s, when the demonstrations of Armenians for independence reached their climax." - IFFR