Ethnic Armenian filmmaker’s “Demi Pointe” short film to be featured in Boston International Film Festival

“Demi Pointe,” a short film written and directed by ethnic Armenian young filmmaker Talin Avakian, will be featured in this year’s Boston International Film Festival (BIFF), The Armenian Weekly reports.

The film festival will take place at the Boston Loews Cineplex/AMC on Tremont Street from April 12-21.

The Boston International Film Festival is the largest International Film Festival in Massachusetts, and one of the largest in the United States. This year, “Demi Pointe” was chosen out of 2,600 entries, and will be one of 100 films (both feature length and short) in the program.

“Demi Pointe” (featuring Sydney Penny, Rachel Scott, Robin Ann Rapoport, and Amy Freedman) is a short fictional narrative about a young girl who struggles to speak. As a selectively mute child, Sydney retreats to her vivid imagination during class and other situations where she may be expected to verbally communicate, as a way to escape her anxiety. Sydney begins to see a speech therapist, who decides to take an empathetic approach in therapy. As therapy progresses, Sydney discovers her love for ballet, and uses that as an outlet for communication.