Filmmaker Edgar Baghdasaryan responds to matters of public resonance in his articles and makes comments (both in social media and on television). He believes the only actual subject worth talking about is the need to be vigilant of the spiritual apparatus lying in each of us.

The director of From Ararat to Zion, Mariam, and Black Wall, Baghdasaryan is currently shooting a film titled Nerum (“Pardon”). “There aren’t any traditionally perceived characters or shots in the film; rather, it’s based more on organic silence, and it has a very aesthetic form. I want the actor to address the viewer directly from the screen,” says the director. 

Baghdasaryan, who considers himself “absolutely an internet guy,” finds that everything is governed with the help of two buttons — stop and go. 

The use of digital technologies changed not only the media industry, but also man. Did the need to address the viewer directly arise from this change?

A person doesn’t want to make contact with another person — he’s become empty and can no longer speak while looking into another’s eyes. I know a family where the husband and wife speak with each other through Skype and Facebook. One is in the kitchen while the other’s in the bedroom and they’re writing messages to each other. This is a completely absurd situation at which people have arrived not of their own will. 

The issue of the image and of visual arts in general is not the onslaught of digital technologies (digitization is generally a brilliant factor), but rather the dissolution of magic. Those days when we locked ourselves up in the bathroom and developed film photography — we were creating real miracles. The birth of the (photographic and film) image at that time was a real miracle. But then the miracle was lost because you could take good-quality images even with your mobile phone and get them broadcast at once. The ease of ensuring good-quality material allowed a large number of dilettantes to invade the field (which actually doesn’t have a negative meaning; it’s simply a fact). After all, we all write stuff but we’re not all writers, right?

And what role does television play today?

When I speak of television, I always have this desire to offend those who work in the industry — perhaps this is the only way to urge them to leave this industry. But I don’t have that right since television feeds many. 

Television has always been a part of the process of targeted governance. But there isn’t a country where importance is placed on TV more than, say, Russia or other post-Soviet states. Those in France, for example, often don’t even know what’s being broadcast — many don’t even have TV sets in their homes. 

I think the explanation is the weakly developed infrastructure. It’s enough to get out of Yerevan (or another urbanized city in Armenia) to understand that you’ve fallen into a completely different world. A world where there is neither the internet nor something to eat or a ball to play with. In this world, children play football with a balled up sock and women bake bread or carry water. Their only hope and entertainment is television, by which they are also governed. 

Those implementing state cultural policies understand very well that TV viewers aren’t those few Armenians who interact on social networks, but those who continue to live in the 19th century and have numerous and never-ending everyday problems. And for these people 5,000 drams is a lot of money [referring to the amount reportedly given to buy votes]. 

Governance is the basis for everything. If satiated and content, a free man doesn’t need television.

Online news media is sprouting like mushrooms; there is also more active involvement in social media. Is this exciting?  

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:271:]]The Internet holds quite an interesting picture right now: there are news websites that express opposing viewpoints, often attacking one another. The online media space is very free — you can write and publish anything. I myself gladly read, write and comment. Unlike print media, online media is more free and full of content — I even think it’s simply not possible for it to be more free than it is now. 

But there’s one big threat: this freedom can disappear at any moment. In Armenia, just one click of the finger (one button, really) can shut down all the online channels of information. The online media space is likewise monopolized and herein lies the threat. But it’s free for now…

I’m sure that in 5 years a significant portion of Armenians won’t watch TV. The role of television will decrease, since it’s already possible to watch nearly everything online. I, for example, always find what I’m looking for online and I consider myself absolutely an internet guy (I don’t even know what they’re showing on TV). People won’t watch television not out of complaints but simply because there won’t be the need. 

[Sergei] Parajanov, for example, was a walking cinema — it can even be said he was a person-media, who at every moment staged what was happening around him

Every film, eventually, has to be sold; that is, it has to reach viewers. This is done by producers, whose profession is to convince people. By the way, this skill is also a part of cultural policy. Watch, read because you have to be the best, smart, profound and fashionable…

Films have to be sold but not be created only to be sold. Of course, we can’t ignore the factor of mass culture, since it brings in revenue, but filmmakers, finally, aren’t servers who go and ask the audience what do you want to see? Mass culture has invaded everywhere and everything, as a result of which man’s inner world is no longer needed by anyone. I think this is the main problem of our art.

Yerevan is the world book capital this year…

… which is quite laughable if we consider that there are only two bookstores in the city. 

But instead we have many promotional posters, which are also media tools. Can it be said that a culture of reading is created with these tools? After all, what is required to have a creative atmosphere?

One of the largest book publishers in Russia writes in the first page of its books that reading is in fashion. And this is part of a huge PR campaign by the state. Being in fashion is the same cultural policy. When, for example, people ask why do we need the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival when Armenia practically doesn’t produce any films, I get very angry because the festival carries out cultural policy. When I see youth sitting on the floor during festival screenings I’m ready to weep tears of joy. Nothing might happen in the film, but cinema creates an amazing atmosphere. And it’s this atmosphere that’s the most expensive thing. 

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As the creative director of an advertising agency, I can say that the posters promoting books have an ugly design: The dingy boy doesn’t read books, while the clean-cut guy is a reader. I think that’s a terribly stupid idea with which you’ll never get people to pick up a book. But you will with the Golden Apricot because it’s enough to plunge into a creative atmosphere for a few years to get the desire to read and make your own film.

Today every person is a media who absorbs information, gives it new meaning and disseminates it. And it’s already difficult to restrict the profession of a filmmaker only to film or theatre. And all this is staged, so why not stage life itself, by staging imperceptible interventions into the media arena — especially in television?

[Sergei] Parajanov, for example, was a walking cinema — it can even be said he was a person-media, who at every moment staged what was happening around him.

As for television, you can try to enter, but… they won’t let you. The authorities need you to be needy and in the dark and not broaden your horizons. And I’m referring to not only our [Armenia’s] but also all types of authorities. This is targeted policy, which (let’s be honest) is implemented by people who are quite smart. And it’s due to this policy that ordinary people are no longer able to love their relatives, to develop and strengthen their spiritual apparatus, the existence of which I truly believe in. Everyone has this apparatus, but some haven’t even taken off its wrapping.

Online media is more free and full of content — I even think it’s simply not possible for it to be more free than it is now

Of course, some people believe that the abundance of delicious meats or entertainment venues can make them happy and replace the spiritual, but I don’t believe this. We all feel that apart from an intestine, liver and lungs, we have an impalpable and evasive substance inside us which can be conditionally called the spirit.

Interview conducted by Nune Hakhverdyan