All I know about my grandmother Evdokia is that more than a century ago she made her way barefoot from Turkey to Syria, fleeing the massacres against the Armenians; that she hid her identity and ethnicity, changed religions and gave brought forth my family.

Perhaps it was my sense that our stories were similar that led me to look closer at her life. For I have immigrated back to Turkey, due to the bloody events now taking place in Syria.

My interest in her story began with a desire to overcome my fraught relationship with my mother, who found in our conversations an escape from the harsh reality of her life in Aleppo. These conversations helped thaw our frosty relationship and she began to tell me things about herself, the family, and Evdokia that I had never heard before. I discovered traits and habits common to all of us, as though Evdokia’s peculiarities had left their mark across three generations, each one of which was to witness a pivotal event in Syrian history—events that in their turn were to effect the damaged relationships between parents and children.

I am scared I will become a carbon copy of my grandmother or mother and am possessed by so strong a desire to rid myself of this inherited curse that I have started to reject the idea of becoming a mother myself.

This film has received the support of Bidayyat’s documentary grant 2014