– My love to films started due to my father, who was Henrik Malyan’s pupil in Yerevan and dreamt of making films. In our house in America filmmakers were always respected and since my childhood I listened to the names of Beknazarov and Malyan.
– Had you taken the film recordings with you?
– We hadn’t taken the films but the names of the films with us. As immigrants we did not have a right to take films with us, but when I was studying at school I used to go to watch movies on Saturdays and Sundays. I have watched all Armenian films and was especially impressed by the Yerankyuni, Nahapet and the Sun of Autumn movies.
– Is it an obligatory principle for you to be the script writer of your own movies?
– You write the scenario when you already see your movie in your mind. At that time you just pass the picture to a paper. For example, in the Blue Time movie I tried to link four different stories and make a connection between four stories which are not connected with each other from the first look. I was very impressed by the stories of Chekhov and Tumanyan and I tried to film the inner world of dialogue of these people.
– Do prizes change the destinies of films?
– Always victory is honor. Of course I feel very happy when people say that the scenes of my movies remind them stories from their own lives. At that time I feel very happy because the opinion of the people is very important for me.
– What will be the film about which was appreciated by the cinema academy of America?
– “The Giants” will be a family drama, which will take place in Los-Angeles. It’s a story about an American family, the members of which don’t live together and don’t understand each other but when it turns out that the 19 years old guy from their family has to be operated on the heart, the family reunites again. The parents have to do that and till the end of the movie they don’t know whether their son will live or no. Even though it’s an American story I think that other nations will understand it too.
– As a person from the Armenian Diaspora, what do you think about the connection of the Diaspora and local Armenians? It seems that almost there are no joint film projects at this time.
– Diaspora Armenians are very different but they have one common thing: their souls are with Armenia. The Armenians who live in Venezuela, Belgium or Armenia feel like real Armenians. Especially when they work on a film together. Film production is an art which has a huge potential, and one should present it with an Armenian context and through the prism of the world picture system. Time will come and it will happen, and festivals will play an essential role in that process and will raise the role of Armenia in the international arena. During film festivals people meet famous movie makers. When you meet filmmakers from different points of the world in one place you understand that the film does not have different languages; its language is the language of pictures. It is the power of the film. I believe the movie and pictures exist in the blood of every Armenian. Even the moving pictures are seen in the creations of our painters; the pictures in the creations of Ayvazowski and Saryan are moving. Filmmaking is 115 years old, but the art of pictures has a history of thousands of years and it started in caves. Now you can imagine how far the filmmaking can grow. One century is just a second for art; we have not been able to understand the potential of the film production yet.
– Can we say that the potential of the film is being discovered with the help of digital facilities? Now technically it is easier to make films.
– It is very good that it is easier now to make films, and it is also cheaper; it helps movie makers to change the lexicon and language of films. If in the past the writers used to become journalists, now it is the vice versa and journalists are becoming writers, and they make movies from their reportages. For the people of my generation the microphone and other instruments have become easy tools now and they can use them easily. The TV, media and Internet are making a new way which is not difficult to learn. However the filmmaking as an art has its own rules and it is very important to possess information. You should know what filmmakers have done, how they work on pictures in order to make a deep inner story.
– Armenian filmmakers usually complain of lack of money and they say they can’t make films because they don’t have money. For example if there is a festival of cheap and short films taken by mobile phones or other handy facilities, will it help the development of cinematography?
– It may help. You can do anything in cinematography, but you should know the language and letters of the cinematography. The cinema is a synthetic art, where the words, light, pictures and many other things play an essential role. By making cheap films you get an opportunity to learn. The process itself is the best teacher. Especially in consideration of the fact that the digital technology is growing very fast and in about 5-10 years it will grow to the extent of being able to replace the quality of film tape. Now phones with camera cannot replace the effects of camera, but I believe they may help to learn the alphabet of cinema.
– Who would be your hero if you were suggested to make a film with an Armenian topic?
– I would prefer a worker.
– Why?
– In Armenia a lot of things are centralized in the capital city but when you go out of Yerevan you meet very surprising things and people. I am especially interested in the life of people in remote regions, the soul of villagers and the relations they have with the nature. This year I traveled to the villages in Lori region and I understood that there was nothing there which would remind us that we are living in the 21st century. You can take a way of nine hours and you will appear in the 9th century. I would like to connect the realities of the capital city and villages and make a contrast movie. I think the hero should be a simple and ordinary person, the heroism of which is not known to anyone. Now I am waiting to see whether my passion will be sufficient to write the scenario I said.
– Is the passion or creative urge so important?
– It is important if you realize that the creative urge is about the hard work. If you are ready to sit and work hard on a piece of paper, the muse will come in time.