{"id":33024,"date":"2022-06-08T07:37:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T07:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/?p=33024"},"modified":"2022-06-08T08:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T08:25:14","slug":"filming-the-war-as-chaos-will-double-the-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/crossroads\/2022\/06\/08\/33024\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFilming the war as chaos will double the chaos\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vardan Hovhannisyan is a documentary director, producer, and cameraman. In 1993, he founded the first independent documentary film studio in Armenia, Bars Media. Collaborating with CBS, BBC, ARTE, and other leading international media, Vardan Hovhannisyan has created films and reportages in various hotspots in the Soviet Union and during the two Artsakh wars. His two experiences of captivity during wars are also unique and difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, as he puts it, to ensure normal functioning of his brain and break free from wars, half of the year he lives on one of the small islands of Africa. And he makes documentaries in Russia, Afghanistan, Polynesia, and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vardan Hovhannisyan spoke of the details of his career at the “Personal Conversations” EVN media festival, which was hosted by Sara Anjargolyan, a member of the EVN Report editorial board.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the trench with us or not in the trench with us<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now I look at the younger generation and try to learn different approaches from them: their perception of the world is very different and much wider. But I\u2019m in the generation which is like \u201cyou are in the trench with us or you\u2019re not in the trench with us.\u201d This approach is pretty black and white and I don\u2019t want my children to live in that monochromatic world, for me it\u2019s important for them to experience all colors. I live in a society, in a country that is surrounded by potential wars and genocides. It may sound radical but you can\u2019t avoid it. But I try to find balance by traveling all around the world and immersing myself in projects there: in Africa, Afghanistan, Botswana, and Polynesia. I think a filmmaker shouldn\u2019t be trapped by one narrow way of thinking but I’m a narrow thinker, unfortunately. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moving to Africa<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, half of the year, I live in Africa. It’s when I do lots of war stuff. There are times when I do not want to record Armenians, I do not want to record trenches, I do not want to see a mountain, because you think in the mountains, there is a sniper sitting there. After war, you start to perceive everything differently. I want to be in a place where they do not want to kill me, beat me, break me, shoot me. And then I found a small island with only twenty thousand people, six thousand donkeys, and only two cars. I was so surprised by that. By the way, I was the worst in my class, so the teachers called me \u201cdonkey head,\u201d and I felt like I was connecting to my brotherhood. Living in the wilderness in Africa is compensation to keep your brain functioning properly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Similarities and differences between the two Artsakh wars<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even before the second war, I knew there were not going to be any similarities because it was totally different. After twenty years lots of things have changed. The tech, the equipment, the war tactics, and the reaction of people to the war were different too. We\u2019ve changed. Back then we were sleeping and living in the trench and it was normal for soviet people. The new generation is different. Even myself, during this war I was thinking, what am I doing here, I have my cozy home, jacuzzi\u2024\u2024. <\/span><\/p>\n

In my subjective opinion, when you go to war, it doesn’t matter who you are, a soldier, doctor, nurse, or a journalist, you must understand why you are going. I\u2019m not an idiot who wants to go to war and die, but if you go there you must be ready for that. I think today we wage so many virtual wars, virtual propaganda, and \u201cpatriotism\u201d that we are not ready to die [in real wars]. That’s why we have so many people who run away from the trenches. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Narek Aleksanyan, from EVN Report Facebook page<\/p><\/div>\n

The realization that the war wasn\u2019t going well<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have pre-war syndrome because I saw how slowly our previous victory, which is my victory, became propaganda. We made lots of statues, marches, songs like \u201cArdyoq ovqer en\u201d etc. In 2008 I started to see that we were going in the wrong direction and I feel guilty that I didn’t raise my voice loud enough publicly to say \u201cguys we create a lot of propaganda for internal use, but instead we should prepare either for war or for peace.\u201d It should\u2019ve been an honest discussion with society and it doesn\u2019t happen now. As journalists and filmmakers, we should raise these questions. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA Story of People in War and Peace\u201d juxtaposes people during the war, then twelve years later it goes back and finds those people again. <\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For me it\u2019s important not to film the war just on the frontline, it\u2019s way more interesting to know what has happened to these people years after the war. For example, during this war, we filmed what was under the bombardment of phosphorus bombs. We had an Armenian filmmaker from Lithuania and when I brought him to the trenches I said \u201cMarat, the first day you will shit in your pants because you\u2019ll be scared, the second day it will be very scared, the fourth day you will start to like it and the fifth day you will say \u2018Vardan, it became really funny, you know, we light up a cigarette with the phosphorous bomb.\u201d This is how people change during war. But also we film these poor soldiers who suffer from phosphorus burns, we film their [military] operation and we plan to film their lives now: how the young guy, most of whose body was burnt, how did he find the power to become an attractive man after the war, to become a guitar player or a programmer, And for me it takes so much more heroism to survive in times of peace. <\/span><\/p>\n

To help or to film?<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I imagine what our POWs are going through. It\u2019s quite a heavy and unpleasant experience but I try not to dramatize it too much for myself and for society. How can I help them? Unfortunately, I don\u2019t know. <\/span>During the first war, I was involved in the exchange of POWs and was thinking to myself, \u2018why am I filming them, people are dying and I\u2019m an observer?\u2019 Maybe I could\u2019ve done something way more important by bringing food or helping by caring for wounded people. <\/span><\/p>\n

And very often I had the camera with me on the frontline but was not filming, I was trying to do something really constructive because filming the war as chaos will double the chaos. <\/span><\/p>\n

I know how important it is to bring these guys back. It\u2019s very tragic. But even for that, you must be prepared before the war: You must explain it to your commander\u2019s unit. During one of the POW exchanging operations, we fell victim to deception and it was like \u201cOkay, now you\u2019re a prisoner,\u201d and I ended up being a POW.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christian Ginosyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vardan Hovhannisyan is a documentary director, producer, and cameraman. In 1993, he founded the first independent documentary film studio in Armenia, Bars Media. Collaborating with CBS, BBC, ARTE, and other leading international media, Vardan Hovhannisyan has created films and reportages in various hotspots in the Soviet Union and during the two Artsakh wars. His two Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crossroads","category-featured-post","author_posts-christian-ginosyan-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33027,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33024\/revisions\/33027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}