The Armenian National Committee – Western Region (ANC-WR) has announced that filmmaker Eric Nazarian will serve as a panelist in “Lights, Camera, Activate,” which will cover the ways in which film, music and the arts can be used to promote grassroots activism.

The presentation is part of the ANC Grassroots weekend that will take place from Friday, November 25 to Sunday, November 27, 2011, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, ANC-WR said in a press release.

Eric Nazarian is an Armenian-American film director and screenwriter, whose latest film “Bolis” recently won the award for Best Short Film at the Arpa International Film Festival. The film, which was shot entirely in Turkey, takes its name from the Armenian word for Istanbul. The 15-minute film focuses on the character Armenak who is an oud player traveling to Istanbul for the first time for an important musical event. His feelings toward the city are very complex, for he identifies it as the place his Armenian grandfather fled from the Genocide in 1915. Armenak arrives full of prejudice, expecting to hate the place, but instead finds it very familiar. The film takes the viewer through an evocative journey as Armenak searches for his grandfather’s old musical instrument shop, and the answers to his past, with only an old photo and a street name. “Bolis” had its world premiere at the European Capital of Cultures festival in Istanbul in 2010.

His film The Blue Hour premiered at the 2007 San Sebastian International Film Festival and was selected by Nanni Moretti to screen at the 25th Torino Film Festival in Turin, Italy.

Nazarian was born in Armenia and moved to the United States as a young child. He grew up in Los Angeles and is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. In 2008, Nazarian won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Nicholl Fellowship, the world’s most prestigious screenwriting competition.