Serj Tankian’s ‘Truth to Power’ Documentary Gets 2021 Release Date

For the past couple of years, System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian has had a documentary in the works called Truth to Power. Now, the film that examines the musician's artistry by way of his activism finally has a release date — it will come out Feb. 19, 2021.

As reported by Rolling Stone, the film highlights Tankian's role in the 2018 Armenian Revolution while showing how his actions inform his music with exclusive interviews and the singer's own footage.

Watch a trailer down toward the bottom of this post.

Truth to Power is "looking through my eyes at how message becomes reality through the arts," Tankian told Rolling Stone back in 2018. "Instead of focusing on me as an artist, it asks, how does one's message come to fruition? Can music change the world?"

The frontman's System of a Down bandmates John Dolmayan and Shavo Odadjian also appear in the doc — as does the group's manager, David "Beno" Benveniste, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, producer Rick Rubin and filmmaker Carla Garapedian. Morello and Tankian founded the non-profit organization Axis of Justice in the early 2000s, uniting music fans with the goal of fighting for social justice.

According to the Tribeca Film Festival, Truth to Power plays as "both an energizing rockumentary and an inspiring call to action for our turbulent times."

As Tankian says at one point in the trailer, "Music changes our intuitive parts; music changes the way we feel about things. How we feel about things can overwhelm our logic. And our logic being a part of the process can change the world. But it requires people realizing that they have the power."

Garin Hovannisian is the director behind the movie; he guided last year's I Am Not Alone, another doc about the 2018 Armenian Revolution. As longtime fans of System of a Down are likely aware, Tankian is an Armenian-American who holds Armenia's social justice issues close to his heart.

And, as SOAD listeners also know, the lead singer's activism fuels his art in urgent ways. Last month, System of a Down released their first new material in 15 years primarily to bring attention to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war that largely affected Armenians.

Truth to Power was produced by way of a partnership between Tankian's own Serjical Strike Entertainment, concert promoter Live Nation, and Oscilloscope Laboratories, the independent film company and distributor co-founded by late Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch.