An Interview with Hrag Yedalian

An Interview with Hrag Yedalian
The Director of ‘The People’s Advocate’ Talks about His Debut Film
By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
August 4, 2007

Criminal defense and civil rights attorney Charles R. Garry is associated with numerous high profile cases in the ‘60s, making him one of the leading attorneys of the 20th century. In his career, which abruptly came to an end when one of his clients, Rev. Jim Jones, led 900 of his followers to mass suicide, Garry defended Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale and the anti-Vietnam war activists known as the Oakland 7, among others. He died in 1991, at the age of 82.

In his autobiography Seize the Time Bobby Seale wrote, “We don’t know every detail of Charles’ life, but we can see that he is a man who is dedicated to the survival and the existence of the right to self-determination of human beings. We need a lot more history on Charles R. Garry so we can understand what motivates a man to be such a defender of the people’s human rights.” In the documentary The People’s Advocate: The Life and Times of Charles R. Garry, director Hrag Yedalian attempts to find out what motivated the Armenian-born Garry (Garabedian) to embark on that road.

Yedalian studies film at the American Film Institute Conservatory. The people’s advocate is his first documentary. This phone-interview was conducted on July 30.

K.M.—Why did you decide to do a documentary on Charles Garry?
H.Y.—I was this young person trying to get involved with different causes and all of that was pretty much motivated by my origin, by the fact that my grandfather was a survivor of the genocide. I wanted to take that motivation and channel it in a positive way. And quite frankly, I was born in the U.S, I grew up in the U.S., I went to school here. It’s pretty important for me to get involved with what’s going on here. Charles Garry’s story was fascinating for a number of reasons. Despite the fact that he was probably one of the most sought after civil rights attorneys during the ‘60s, here was this guy of Armenian descent, and he was defending all these people who were seen as the poster boys and girls for the “Revolution.” I wanted to look into the story but most importantly, I want to use the story as an example.
As an AYF member, I used to interact with literally dozens if not hundreds of youth my age, and I wanted them to see that in addition to Genocide recognition, there are so many profound issues that affect us. I felt that Garry’s example would serve as a positive influence. Garry was an individual of Armenian descent who went out of his way, became an attorney and defended human rights.
I’m sure Garry has been criticized for changing his name, etc. I’m sure Armenians of the time felt that he wasn’t “Armenian enough.” But if you look into his trial transcripts of any of the Panther cases, or any of the anti-Vietnam war cases, his opening and closing statements often include reference to his own people. When defending the oppressed, his essential argument for the jury was: These people are being oppressed, segregated in this country today. Throughout history, we’ve seen what has happened to, for example, the Armenian people, and we can’t allow our government to be oppressive in the same ways that other governments have been in the past. And that was his main thrust, that was the central focus, and he understood it. So addition to being an Armenian who was discriminated against in the Fresno area, he lived through the Depression, he knew how difficult it is for the poor to get by in the U.S. So it was the dynamic of all this that attracted me to his story and I really wanted to present it to the public in general and people my age in particular.

K.M.—Talk about the sources you used.
H.Y.—At Berkley, I took this history class titled “Rethinking the Sixties.” The purpose of the class was to work on a substantial paper that dealt with any topic of the ‘60s. After the first class I was already thinking of Charles Garry. I approached the Professor and told him that I’m very interested in writing about Garry, but because there isn’t a lot of printed material I want to go and interview people. After she gave me the OK, I called Roxanne and asked for her advice. She e-mailed me the contact information of people she had spoken to and interacted with, and that’s where it started. I started talking to people.
Roxanne had the benefit of dealing directly with Garry. I never had that benefit because Gary passed away in 1991. So I had to tell a story about Gary without Gary, basically. Obviously the best way to do that was to interview the people who were closest to him. So if you see the interviewee list, it includes everyone from, let’s say, Bobby Seal, the co-founder of the Panthers, to his longtime girlfriend, to his two brothers, who both passed away since. So you have all this oral testimony that’s actually quite fascinating. I wanted to intentionally make a film that was not the duplicate of Roxanne’s film. At the end, I wanted for someone who was really interested in Garry to get different pieces from each of the movies. The only interviewee that appears in both is Bobby Seal.
In addition to that, the main sources come from the archival footage that I found from local television stations in San Francisco. That’s where the gold was. I think I’ve used archival footage from at least six or seven sources if not more. Also, an important part of the film was Garry’s legal documents; they are all at UC Berkley and I spent a few months going through them. There are copies of paperwork and legal files that I was fortunate enough to obtain and go over. So it’s really the mix of four or five different types of sources in the film.

K.M.—Can you tell us briefly about your background? You mentioned your work in the AYF, but give us a more general background, your education, etc.
H.Y.—Well I went to two Armenian private schools. After I graduated from high school, what I really wanted to do was get firmly involved in the political process. During high school and after, I was involved with local political campaigns here in Los Angeles to get people registered to vote. I was fortunate enough to be a part of that process. And as I got more and more immersed, I decided to sort of take a different route. I got interested in organizational work, in international human rights work, and I wanted to go to law school so that I could try to do similar things. Garry’s a good example of what civil rights/human rights attorneys can do with their careers. After graduating Berkley, I started law school. I registered at UCLA Law, but a few weeks into it, because I was so involved with this documentary, I decided that it wasn’t the route to go. So I left law school for film school, and that’s sort of the route that I’ve decided on at this point—making films and hopefully trying to influence a few people through that work.

K.M.—So you’re still studying?
H.Y.—I’m still studying, yes. I’m going to start my second year in September.

K.M.—Let’s talk about the people you interviewed. Can you tell us how you made the selection, and about your experiences with interviewees like Howard Zinn?
H.Y.—To be in my position and to talk to these people was sort of an unreal experience because most of them are people who have influenced history. To have the privilege to talk to these people was a big deal for me.
You mentioned Howard Zinn. I’ll start with him. I’ve always been fascinated with his work, and I called him and told him that I was looking for a narrator for a film on Garry and whether he would be interested. Immediately, without hesitation—and I was actually shocked by it—he said he would definitely be interested in doing that.
I caught him at a very busy time in his life. He was going across the country, and if he was to do the narration, he would have had to spend a lot of time writing it. So we agreed to take a different route: He would be in the film, and he would provide the historic context. So, for example, when we’re talking about the anti-communist hunts during the 1950’s or the Vietnam War, he provides a brief context. There are four Panthers in the movie. There’s Bobby Seal, who was an obvious choice, and the other three are very interesting and important choices. One has to realize that although Charles Garry was defending Bobby Seal or others in court, he wasn’t constantly interacting with them because these were men in prison. He would visit them but he wasn’t interacting with them on a constant basis. He was interacting with the other people involved in the party. In fact, he was probably closest to David Hilliard, who was the chief of staff of the Panther Party. David talks about this on the phone. He and Charles Garry, they were partners during the late ‘60s. They would go around college campuses and David would represent the party, and Garry would talk about the legal aspects. And they would literally go on tours and raise money for these causes and talk about these cases. And then there is Ericka Huggins, who is an extremely sensitive person and truly admired Garry. I also interviewed Kathleen Cleaver because she knew the party inside and out, and she was very active with the first Panther trial. In addition to knowing Garry pretty well, she provides the historic background to most of these cases. Most of the interviewees were incredibly generous in lending their time and support to the film.

K.M.—Talk about Garry’s brothers, Harvey and Haig Garabedian.
H.Y.—Actually, the first interview I conducted was with both of the brothers in 2003. They were living in Fresno and I called them up, and we basically developed this friendship, and they would talk literally for hours.
They definitely didn’t know the details about, let’s say, his involvement with the Panthers, or his decision to take on this case or that case. They didn’t know any of that. What they did know, was about their roots, what Garry was going through as a child growing up in Fresno... That was the most important part.
Unfortunately, the brothers never saw my film. In fact, I don’t think Garry ever saw the final cut of Roxanne’s film, so it’s pretty unfortunate actually.

An Interview with Arsinee Khanjian

An Interview with Arsinee Khanjian
By Khatchig Mouradian

The Armenian Weekly
March 17, 2007

Arsinee Khanjian was born in Lebanon in 1958. Her family moved to Montreal
when the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975. While a graduate student at
Concordia University, she met her future husband, Atom Egoyan, when
auditioning for his debut film, "Next of Kin" (1984). Khanjian has appeared
in most of Egoyan's films, and has gradually made a name for herself as an
accomplished actress. She has also appeared on the Canadian stage and
television shows. In 2002, Khanjian won the Genie Award for best actress in
"Ararat" and was nominated for the same award in 2005 for her role in
"Sabah."

Her most recent role is in "Lark Farm," the ambitious project of the Taviani
brothers, the titans of Italian cinema, which brings the Armenian Genocide
to the big screen. "Lark Farm" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in Feb.
2007 and was highly acclaimed in the German media.

In this interview with Khanjian, conducted by phone on March 7, we discuss
her experiences with "Lark Farm," with flashbacks to "Ararat."

Armenian Weekly-How did you become involved in "Lark Farm"?

Arsinee Khanjian-A friend of the casting agent for the Taviani brothers was
on the jury of the second Golden Apricot Festival in Yerevan. I met her and
she told me that the agent was looking for my contact information because
the Taviani brothers wanted me to be a part of their next project, which is
about an Armenian family during WWI.
To hear that the Taviani brothers were searching for me was quite strange,
because I am quite easy to find through my agent. Then I figured out this
was the Italian way of having things done: Everything has to be complicated
so that it is simplified afterwards! I said I would be more than thrilled to
have a look at the project. The Tavianis, of course, are inescapable masters
of Italian cinema along with [Michelangelo] Antonioni, [Federico] Fellini,
[Bernado] Bertolucci. They are part of the foundation of Italian cinema.
A month later, I received a phone call from the agent saying that they would
send me the English translation of the script. And that's what I read. I
haven't read Antonia Arslan's book Skylark Farm, which was published in
Italian and recently translated to English. I suppose the script is a loose
adaptation of the book. I have no idea what the differences are between the
novel and the script of the movie.


A.W.-Talk about the script and how you felt about it on your first reading.

A.K.-Reading the script, I asked myself why the Tavianis would be interested
in this particular story of this particular history. How can people who have
not been part of this history understand with so much astuteness and
sensitivity the predicament of this culture, and also the individual lives
and experiences of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during that period?

In the actual script, they never locate the town or the city. But we can
deduce from the family's social status that this is a bourgeois family,
quite well off, educated, involved in business. They do not live in a
village. However, there are also interesting encounters in the film with
other Armenian families who are not necessarily of the same social status.
Reading the script was a very powerful, explosive experience for me, similar
to reading [Franz Werfel's] The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. As a culture, we
have been ignored for so long that when we see someone who is really
attentive to us, we are really taken aback. And I really was.

I had to deal with my own demons in the love story issue [in the story, an
Armenian girl and a Turkish officer fall in love]. However, this does give a
perspective of not demonizing every Turkish person in the history of the
Armenian Genocide. I was initially reticent towards the love story, but in
the end I must say that it was masterfully contextualized.

I was surprised that I was the only Armenian in the project apart from
Antonia Arslan. In a way, I was very curious to know how this would work. I
wasn't sure how all these actors would approach the historic background. Not
that it is always necessary for the artists to come from a certain culture
to be able to act; not only the British can play Shakespeare. But again
there was a hidden suspicion of mine, probably a cultural suspicion.

As the shooting of the film began, I realized that I had not been in a
multicultural project like this in my entire acting career. Young Spanish
star Paz Vega plays the role of Nounik. French actor Tcheky Karyo, who was
born in Istanbul and is of Jewish background, plays the role of my (Armine's)
husband. French actor Andre Dussollier plays the Turkish general. The
officer is an Italian star Alessandro Preziosi. Palestinian actor Mohammed
Bakri [who plays the role of a heroic beggar] is in it as well. The young
zabtiyye is played by German actor Moritz Bleibtreu. And then we had all the
Bulgarian actors with smaller parts. [The movie was a co-production of
France, Spain, Bulgaria and Italy, and was shot in Bulgaria].

There was a scene where one actor was speaking in English, others in
Spanish, French, Italian and Bulgarian. And the marvel is that when I
watched the film, I did not see even the slightest sign of disarray. It was
very harmonious and makes complete sense in terms of performances.

I guess the multicultural aspect of the project itself was a very
interesting backdrop to the interest of the Tavianis in this subject, which
is now of universal curiosity. The film has a very strong statement to make,
beyond its artistic quality, and it is done in a very tactful, considerate
and committed way. The music is also beautiful and evocative to the story.

A.W.-In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, Vittorio Taviani said, "As we
read Arslan's book, it became clear to us that we could tie the past with
the present together. As we were shooting the film, the entire team had the
impression that this was the most newsworthy and up-to-date film that anyone
could ever make" (Armenian Weekly, March 3). What do you have to say about
the "newsworthiness" of this film?

A.K.-It was great that the movie premiered [at the Berlin Festival] in
Germany. The country has a great Turkish population, but beyond that, it has
a lot of relationship with this history, because Germany was Turkey's ally
during WWI. There are a lot of things of interest for today's Germans,
because this is also their history. I am not sure how much the German press
pushed the debate in that direction and asked those questions looking at the
film. I think the general attitude was more in relation of where Turkey
stands today and what the possibility is of facing its past as a country
with European aspirations.
Yes, it is a timely subject because we aren't finished with this kind of
behavior in our societies. The history of the Armenian Genocide is very much
alive partly because it is a very archetypical example of what is currently
happening.

A.W.-Some German reviewers noted that there was too much violence in the
movie. What's your take on that?

A.K.-What am I supposed to say when critics make that kind of comment? Don't
we see a lot of violence in "Pulp Fiction" and in all the video games our
children play? Didn't we see on TV what has happened in Darfur, Rwanda,
Sarajevo? Didn't we see the hanging of Saddam Hussein? Why are they talking
about violence? Are they insinuating that the topic is being manipulated? Is
this why they are raising this question? As far as I am concerned, there
wasn't particularly shocking violence and the violence was absolutely
minimal compared to what the historical record on the Armenian Genocide
tells us.

I want to add that I think the violence is minimal but what the scenes with
violence suggest is very powerful indeed.

A.W.-What was the general reaction of the public in Berlin to "Lark Farm"?

A.K.-The press and theatre screenings of the film were packed, and people
were taken by this experience. A lot of people were very surprised and
undignified because they didn't know about the history. The film has not
opened anywhere else yet.

A.W.-It will open in France next.

A.K.-In France, it will open in June. I am in close contact with the French
producer and he really wants this to work. The French Armenian community
didn't go and see "Ararat." It is unacceptable and shameful. When there are
films made about these stories, it is our responsibility to be curious and
engage ourselves. It doesn't mean that we have to like it or defend it, but
we really have to know about it by going and seeing. I am hoping that the
Armenian community will do that this time around. The rest is going to be in
the hands of French critics and the French audience. We can only provide
curiosity through our own excitement.

I certainly hope that our intelligentsia will stop having ambivalent
commitment to the subject matter, because a lot of us still haven't sorted
out the impact of our identity. Our writers and social commentators should
put themselves outside of these experiences whether these are films or other
forms of artistic expression, and they should try to contextualize, in a
generous way, the meaning of a work of art on this history. This film or any
other film is the individual's connection with the subject matter and
therefore it will always be presented through the individual's perspective.
The job of any writer, especially an Armenian one, is to understand that
there is more than one perspective around the question of Armenian identity,
and that there is no right one.

A.W.-I can't help but think that you are referring to the critics of
"Ararat".

A.K.-Yes, you are absolutely right in saying that a lot of my comments are
based on my experience with "Ararat." Honestly it's not that it affected in
any way the success of "Ararat" in terms of where its sits in the history of
international cinema, but it was a great disappointment to me to see how
limited our community was in terms of its ability to open up to the reality
of what our identities are today.

The regressive kind of attention was not an issue for the filmmaker or
myself, but when generations to come decide to read about how the Armenian
intelligentsia dealt with these issues, it is unfortunate that we don't have
anything more intelligently and less subjectively vested. I would have liked
the coming generation to see how much multiplicity there is in our seeing
and understanding almost 100 years later the trauma of this identity. That
is what's going identity survival for the young generation. They ought to
see an exchange of ideas and experiences, and not just defensive criticism.

A.W.-Compare your experience with "Ararat" to that of "Lark Farm."

A.K.-[Laughs] Thank you for these questions. I would never have thought of
making a parallel between the two and I certainly did not make that parallel
when I read the script because the sensibilities of filmmakers as well as
the stories that they are choosing to tell are very different. But when I
saw the film, I said to myself: This is unbelievable. What "Lark Farm"
happens to be is what people expected "Ararat" to be.

In a way "Ararat" did deal with the history but not as a whole; the onus of
the film was not in the past, because "Ararat" wanted to be a film in today's
reality. It asked questions like: What does the Genocide do to us, the
children of the survivors? "Ararat" wanted to be a contemporary story about
our dilemma and trauma with this history. However, the film within the film
was where we saw flashbacks connecting us with the history. In some ways,
"Lark Farm" is the film within the film that Edward Saroyan was making in
"Ararat."

I didn't realize it until I saw the film, its texture, its story. I thought,
yes, many Armenians often need this kind of story, because so little of the
Genocide story has been told on the big screen. In a way, "Ararat" was ahead
of its time and "Lark Farm" should have been made 30 years ago.


A.W.-Many Armenians were expecting "Ararat" to be an epic movie telling the
history of the Armenian Genocide.

A.K.-We have to ask ourselves why weren't these epic films made? Why should
it have been Atom who made it when he goes way beyond this style of
filmmaking?
We keep saying that there are so many films about the Holocaust. Who made
those films? The Jews themselves made them. And did we not have that much
presence in the film community? Did we not have the money? Why didn't we do
it?

We didn't make these films because we don't invest enough-financially,
intellectually and artistically-in this issue. Isn't it unbelievable that
ultimately "Ararat" was made by a Canadian Jewish producer? Not even one
penny was provided by Armenians. We have to ask the right question before we
jump to criticism.

An Interview with Carla Garapedian

Documenting Truth: An Interview with Carla Garapedian
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
December 2, 2006

The LA Times has described film director Carla Garapedian's work as
"documenting truth in dangerous places." After documenting truth in
different parts of the world, Garapedian has returned to her roots, and
explores the continued denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey and its
allies in "Screamers," a documentary that will premiere in Los Angeles on
Dec. 8.

"Screamers" tells of how the world's major powers continually turned away
when genocide was being committed, whether in the Ottoman Empire, Rwanda or
Darfur. Multiple platinum selling rock band System of a Down partners with
Garapedian and producer Peter McAlevey to send a powerful message through
the band's music and activism. Also featured in the documentary are Pulitzer
Prize winning scholar Samantha Power, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, and
Genocide survivors.

Garapedian earned her Ph.D. in international relations from the London
School of Economics. After working as a correspondent for NBC, she served as
a director and anchor at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Her
documentaries include "Lifting the Veil," "Children of the Secret State,"
"Iran Undercover," and "My Friend the Mercenary."

I talked to her by phone from Watertown, Mass., on Wednesday, Nov. 29.


A.W.-You have filmed various documentaries on crimes against humanity and
human rights abuses in Chechnya, North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan. Your
most recent documentary "Screamers" tackles the issue of the Armenian
Genocide. For the first time, it seems, you travel to the past, and explore
how the destruction of the Armenians in 1915 remains a pressing issue today.
Tell us about this journey.

C.G.-Yes it's certainly the first time that I tackled a historical subject.
In fact, I really did not want to do it to begin with because there had been
some very good documentaries made about the Armenian Genocide and I didn't
know how I was going to add any value. In fact, I worked on a couple of such
documentaries by the acclaimed filmmaker Michael Hagopian ["Voices from the
lake" and "Germany and the Secret Genocide"].

When I talked to [System of a Down lead vocalist] Serj Tankian initially, he
said that what interests him is the politics of denial and doing a
documentary that would intersect with the band's work. Eventually, we made a
political film, and that was something I was more familiar with. In turn,
the BBC was interested in how something that happened in history had become
current politics. There was interest in Turkey's bid to join the EU, and in
that context, the issue of the Armenian Genocide was being raised in
Turkey-by the likes of novelist Orhan Pamuk-and in Europe. Also, System of a
Down (SOAD) was an interesting phenomenon for the BBC because the band had a
worldwide following and young people were becoming aware about the Armenian
Genocide through the band. There was also the fact that the issue of the
Genocide was still being debated in the U.S. and there was this scandal
surrounding [former Speaker of the House] Dennis Hastert [over his refusal
to bring the Genocide Resolution to the floor]. For all these reasons, the
BBC gave me the initial green light to make the film and I was lucky to have
that.

A.W.-Most of your previous work also deals with crimes against humanity and
human rights violations. Was your Armenian background a catalyst for that?

C.G.-My family was always involved in community events as I was growing up
here in LA. They had a very strong sense of being Armenians in America. So I
grew up with the feeling that our genocide was not being recognized and it
motivated me to look at other peoples' suffering-war crimes in Chechnya that
were not recognized as war crimes, for instance. I also did a film about
North Korea ["Children of the Secret State"] in a time when America was
trying to contain North Korea's nuclear issue and not talk about the human
rights violations there. As an Armenian, these issues resonated with me;
these people were victims and their voices were not being heard. Looking
back, I have been motivated by a sense of injustice and it made me want to
help other people get their story out.

A.W.-Talk about how you chose the title of your new documentary.

C.G.-Samantha Power uses the term "screamers" in her Pulitzer Prize winning
book [A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide] when referring
to people who speak up when genocide is taking place. In turn, Serj told me
that when the band first started, major label people approached him and
said, "You guys are really talented, but if you keep screaming and growling
the way you do, you probably won't get signed by a major label." Serj
thanked them for their advice and kept doing what they were doing. Later on,
when I was interviewing him, Serj told me that in politics, too, we should
all be screamers. That's how the title of the film came about.

A.W.-When I talk to genocide scholars, I often ask them whether we really
ever mean it when we say "Never Again." What do you think?

C.G.-We don't mean "Never Again." What I try to do is identify that
hypocrisy because by identifying it we can then move on to say, "OK, so we
don't mean it, and how does that reflect on us and what we want to achieve
in our foreign policy?" Maybe our policy is always non-intervention, maybe
it is always about how we perceive our national security interests. And in
genocide, what happens is that leaders think intervention is not worth it. I
think that part of the answer is how you define what your national interests
are. I think our national interest should be stopping genocide in the world.
Let's just say that you do not define intervention by morality or the right
thing to do, but by national security. I think it is in our national
security to stop genocide wherever it's happening, because it creates
pockets of hate, violence and vengeance, and that backfires. How can we live
peacefully in this world while we allow the most awful thing civilization
has ever known to occur?

I truly believe that genocide is an idea, a belief. And we can change
beliefs. It is like slavery. In the past, we believed that slavery was
perfectly all right and now we know better. We used to believe that it was
OK to make children work in mines and we don't believe that anymore. If
there are enough people who are indignant and morally outraged about
genocide, they will do something about it, too.

People do get involved when awareness is created. When the tsunami happened
in Indonesia, people here in America donated millions of dollars to help the
victims, sometimes without even knowing where that place was. They thought,
"That could happen to me. I could be sitting in my home and suddenly this
tidal wave comes and takes my whole family away."

A.W.-Television and the media had a role in that, in the sense that people
thought "These are real people just like us" and the same is true in the
case of genocide.

C.G.-Of course, in the case of the Armenian Genocide, there were many
missionaries and diplomats from different countries of the world, which is
why it was very well documented. What makes it hard to tell the story is
that we have the still pictures, but not the moving pictures. I do think
people would feel differently if we had the kind of pictures that we have
for the Holocaust. Yes, television is critical. A friend of mine, a
photographer who was in Sudan, was telling me how difficult it is to get to
places where the atrocities are taking place, and that when you get to the
burnt villages, the atrocities have already happened, so you see the
aftermath but you don't see it when it's happening. But still the images are
powerful enough to move people.

A.W.-Let's talk about the experience of working with SOAD.

C.G.-When I first saw them perform-jumping around and screaming-I was a
little intimidated. When I first heard their music I thought, "Oh my God,
how am I going to work with them?" I was turning the volume down when they
screamed. And when I heard Serj sing the beautiful melodic parts of the
songs, I would then turn the volume up again-there's an Armenian sound in
their music here. The more I listened to it the more I thought, "I can do
something with this." Now I listen to their music and I don't know what was
I thinking at first. I didn't understand it back then. The more I listened,
the more I got used to it.

So at first I was intimidated. Then I was worried about what happens when
one is around a rock group. Am I going to be able to take all these fans,
all these groupies? But they [SOAD] are nice Armenian boys, and I'm a nice
Armenian girl [laughs], so they knew that they had to treat me like a
relative. They tried to be very helpful to me and they knew that I was a
little bit intimidated by the experience of being around them so they tried
to "protect" me.

They are very nice people, and humble, and they haven't been spoiled by
success at all. The thing that surprised me about them most was that they
are pure musicians. They are not into the publicity or selling the music.
They are very much into the music, and try to be the best musicians they
can, and that surprised me. I used to think that rock musicians were these
kind of crazy, drugged out guys who don't care and go on stage and pluck a
few notes on the guitar and wonder off. These guys are not like that at all.
They are serious musicians. They put everything into their concert and they
totally exhaust themselves. So I was impressed by that. Working with them
was a very positive experience and I feel changed by it. I will never again
be judgmental about rock bands and musicians. I'm not saying they're all
like that but I realized I was being judgmental.

I was also being judgmental about the young generation. I thought they only
cared about material things-their clothes, getting the most expensive tennis
shoes, and whether they are going to get the best jobs. The fans I met were
just the opposite. They do care about what is happening in the world, and
they do want to make a difference.

Now, I even understand some of the head banging. It's kind of a tribal
thing. They get together and they have a sense of community and they also
feel like they are rebelling.


A.W.-What are your plans for the documentary?

C.G.-The first showing of the documentary will be on Dec. 8 in LA-home of
the band. Starting in January, the film will be shown in New York, Boston,
Chicago and Washington. We hope every Armenian shows up and brings a friend,
so that we have the core audience we need to send the message out. In recent
years, more people are going to the movie theatres to see documentaries, and
we are riding on that wave. Watching "Screamers" is also a sort of
entertainment. The people who watch it in the theatres will come out feeling
that they have been to a movie and not just a documentary that they may have
seen on TV. The reason we are having these theatrical screenings is to raise
political awareness. We wanted to do these screenings because the media will
cover it when it's in the theatres.

An Interview with Diamanda Galas

An Interview with Diamanda Galas
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
April 8, 2004


Belgian writer Henri Michaux, Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan, Italian
filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, French symbolist Gérard Nerval, Peruvian poet
Cesar Vallejo, Armenian poet Siamanto, Syrian poet Adonis, Assyrian poet Dr
Freidoun Bet-Oraham, and Diamanda Galas' 4-octave weapon of a voice come
together in `Defixiones, Will And Testament' (Defixiones refers to the words
engraved on the graves of the dead warning against desecrating the corpse) ,
a double album (www.mute.com) `investigating the Armenian, Assyrian and
Greek genocides carried out by Turkey between 1914 and 1923', and raging
against the continued Turkish denial of these atrocities. `Defixiones'
received its world premiere performance on 11 September 1999 in Ghent,
Belgium and has since been performed in South America, USA, Europe, and
Australia.

Galas was raised in San Diego, where she received training in classical
music and opera. She studied biochemistry at USC and then continued her post
graduate studies in Europe, before embarking on a journey in music and
activism that would earn her `titles' ranging from the sublime `Diva of the
dispossessed' to the ridiculous `the devil's maiden'. Many miss the point of
her sometimes outrageous, often electrocuting voice, lyrics, and public
statements, but it seems she couldn't care less. After all, `I am doing this
for myself' she says, `so that I continue living an interesting life'.

The word "myself" probably should not be taken literally. Galas' `self' is
rather extended and includes the diseased, the oppressed, the exiled, and
the unburied. Her rage, far from being the expression of a soul gasping for
blood and bitterness, is a genuine refusal of the lies, fabrications, and
misconceptions that surround us.

I spoke with her by telephone on April 5, 2004.


Aztag- Your work in the 80s and 90s was chiefly about AIDS. How did you
decide to tackle the issue of Genocide?

Diamanda Galas- My father's people are Pontic Greeks from Anatolia. Since I
was a little girl, he told me all these stories about the Turks kicking his
people out of Turkey and how they had to escape. He showed me the stories of
Elia Kazan. He told me how they escaped and went to other regions (for
example Smyrna) and then I heard what happened in Smyrna. I have been
hearing these stories for 35 years. So I knew that I was going to work on
this, and then I heard more about the Armenian genocide, which was so
similar to the stories he had told me and the time periods were at times
similar.

I later started to study these (genocides), as well as the Assyrian
genocide, intensively. I realized that the 3 of them were very connected,
even though they were very different as well. I also felt that it is very
important to discuss all 3 and started a process of intensive research. This
meant going into the texts of poets and writers who had witnessed and
documented the crime (like Siamanto). I also studied the works of Nikos
Kazantzakis, Yannis Ritsos and many others, who have talked so much about
the domination of the Turks.

Then I decided to choose certain poets that I would work with musically. At
this stage, I had to study with speakers. For example I studied with Shakeh
Kadejian, an actor in New York. She's an Armenian from Lebanon who performs
Siamanto every year. I studied with her the delivery of Siamanto. As you
know, in the album, she is speaking it and I am singing it. For Adonis'
poem, I studied with Egyptian speakers. It all took five years.

Aztag- I saw the bibliography on your website (http://www.diamandagalas.com)
, it's a good place to start with if someone is interested in researching
these events.

D.G.- You know it is really one tenth of everything; there are so many
papers, and I am not very organized, so I have boxes and boxes of research
papers and printouts. My house is a nightmare...

Aztag- It is evident that you aren't an artist trying to find causes just to
give an extra dimension to her art...you are really into this, aren't you?

D.G.- My father is 87 years old now; when I was little he played Kazan's
film `America, America' and told me these stories so long that it resonates
in my brain. There is another equally important factor here. In the States,
if you are Greek, and especially Middle Eastern/Anatolian Greek, you really
are invisible. Nobody knows anything about your culture.

Aztag- A few years ago, Thea Halo's `Not Even My Name' created some interest
towards Pontic greeks.

D.G.- That's a good book from the genocide perspective but even this book
does not discuss the incredible culture that existed there and was wiped
out, because the Turks were jealous of all of us. They were jealous of the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek cultures. Our cultures were so superior to
theirs. They had nothing. They stole their Koran from the Arabs, the art and
everything else from the Greeks and the Armenians. Everything they had was
stolen from somebody, somewhere. And then all they wanted was the money,
they didn't want the people. But when they got the money and the property
they didn't know what to do with it, and those lands became a desert.

It's a question of invisibility. For me, as a second generation, I walk
around this huge country that does not recognize my culture except when
seeing people who sell souflaki, and, at best, they know we had a great
writer, Socrates...

Aztag- Or they have seen `My Big Fat Greek Wedding'.

D.G.- Yeah. That movie is actually very funny but it's the only thing that
anyone knows -although I was not raised like that in my family- Here, there
is a concept of what is white culture, which means culture from the south or
culture from LA, and then there is what people consider black culture, and
there is Hispanic culture, and that's it. Everybody else is invisible. Until
September 11th, Arabic culture was also invisible but now it is visible in a
negative perspective.

I was supposed to be part of the Olympic thing, they didn't want me to do
Defixiones, `Oh, no we don't want you to do Defixiones because the Turks
will get angry', I was so angry and I thought `Jesus Christ, where am I
going to perform this...'

Aztag- It's ironic, because you had difficulty arranging a performance in
Armenia as well.

D.G.- It's so ironic. The places that I want to perform before anywhere
else...I bet we're going to perform it in Istanbul before anywhere else. I
never even call it `Istanbul'; I say `Constantinople'...we'll do a tour in
America for the first time in the fall, I have one performance in Italy,
this is in Serara in June...I don't make my living doing Defixiones. I make my
living from doing more the blues stuff because I could never support myself
doing Defixiones, no one would pay for it.

The reason I am doing it is because I am totally angry at this country for
making the Greeks invisible. I cannot stand to be out with a group of people
who are talking about this culture and that culture and my culture is
invisible...they have these generalizations, for example they consider all
Christianity the same...this is totally insane. Then there is this stupid film
`The Passion'... It's so boring, I think it's a cross between the Tour de
France and a bad menu for spaghetti Bolognese, that's it. You have no
director and there are all these Italians who are hired to do beautiful
effects, just like you have in the film, the Jews hiring Romans to beat
Christ. What's really bizarre in this film is that everyone knows that by
caning you should be able to break someone's spine if you hit him twice. So
you're not going to hit someone a hundred times and he would still be able
to walk with a cross. The Greeks that I know, if they're going to think
about a Christ, they're going to think about him as Kazantzakis' Christ...As
far as I am concerned, if you care about Christ, he was a man. `The Passion'
is like a Steven Spielberg film, why should I be interested in someone from
Malibu riding his motorbike writing a piece about Christ? `Shut up, you
don't know what you're talking about'...

The Coptic, Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian cultures are invisible in this
country. Nobody knows about these cultures, just like nobody knows about the
Pasolini Film on Christ ("The Gospel According to St. Matthew'). It's a very
hard country to live in this sense...I don't work here, I work in Europe, I
work in south America, I work in Mexico, because they respect my culture.

The side of the `New York Times' here is the side of the US, Israel, and
Turkey, that's it. The only concerns they have at all is Israel and
Palestinians. Nothing else exists. And the only reason they're interested in
Palestine is because of the Israelis and because of the Jews in this
country. Nobody else matters and you find yourself in this very curious
position. I get these horrible fights in my living room which has become so
dangerous for me...This is because I don't like seeing my culture castrated,
and it is being castrated by a bunch of ignorant politicians...

Aztag- You have said "My voice was given to me as an instrument of
inspiration for my friends, and a tool of torture and destruction to my
enemies." Who are your enemies?

D.G.- The enemies are people who chose to remain ignorant because they are
cowards and they like to run in packs. They like to be like dogs and they
don't like to speak for themselves. In this country I see a lot of people
like that, I discuss what I'm talking about and they say `what do you mean
`genocide', that's not an important genocide' the only important genocide is
the one that took place in Western Europe' the only people that were chosen
were those people". I have fights with people who don't think for themselves
or who don't think, who really have an agenda and they don't want to change
it. I can think of a million ethnic groups but it really comes down to
individuals. It's a weird story...

I have friends in different areas of the world and they are working in the
same situations over and over again. The same type of situations where you
have missing people, like El Salvador in Argentina...when I went to Mexico to
perform `Defixiones' they said `no one's going to be interested in
`Defixiones' and Armenians' and I said `you are wrong'.

Aztag- People do relate. I know people related when you performed in
Australia as well...

D.G.- The people who were cynical have been the people who are only thinking
about their own genocide.

Aztag- Some individuals want their people to be recognized as the first even
in misery.

D.G.- They want to be first in misery, only celebrate their holidays.My own
father is horrified when I say these things. He's first generation and when
they came to this country they were taught to be quiet just like the Greeks
in Turkey were told to wear the fez and be quiet, be invisible...I don't have
to be that because I'm American and in America nobody is going to threaten
my life because to of the things I'm saying here, nobody!

When you have freedom of speech it's your obligation to use it because of
all the people who don't have it, and that's what I told the Greeks when I
went to Greece I said "I have it, so I can use it and you can say this is
the Greek American who's saying this and you can excuse yourself".

Aztag- You have made some additions to `Defixiones', let's talk about that.

D.G.- When the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974, `Hurriyet' published this poem
called `Hatred', which talks about how they want to kill the Greeks and cut
them up into a thousand pieces. I added this poem and I do it in Turkish.

Aztag- Was the timing intentional? After all, there are renewed efforts
underway to solve the Cyprus issue.

D.G.- No, I started adding 6 months ago. You know my stuff never has timing;
I'm always doing something when it's the least interesting to everybody.
I started "Plague Mass" in 1983-84 and everybody said `oh, I don't
want to hear this shit about AIDS', then I performed it in 1990 people were
so interested. With me, it takes 5 or 6 years to create these works.

Aztag- Let's talk about the cancellation of your performance in Armenia 2
years in a row. What happened?

D.G.- The reason that I became angry about it was because they invited me
twice at the last minute -the first was 6 months and the second was 4 months
before- saying `we really want you to perform'. So we planned to do it,
everything was set up and they cancelled it the last minute and they said
they had to cancel because there was a national holiday, it became a
national holiday so they had to cancel. I said "ok, fine!"

The second year was after September 11th and I was supposed to do it at the
end of September 25th or something. I booked Aeroflot and all my flights
that were taking me from England to Holland to Armenia, and it cost me a lot
of money and they weren't paying me at all. They were only going to pay me
for the flight, that's it. And then at the last minute they cancelled. They
said that the theater (The Opera House) was being rebuilt and it would not
be ready for my performance the dressing room wasn't going to be ready, I
said `oh, come on, forget the dressing room lets just do it the way it is, I
have done performances with a trailer next to the theater. And then they
wrote this lie that Diamanda needed such incredible technology like Madonna,
and this was just a pile of shit, all I do is sit at the piano and I have 2
other microphones in other parts of the stage and that's it. It's a very
simple show, not a rock show, so they lied 2 years in a row...so I said `you
think you can f--- me like this' , and I wrote a press release and sent it
out everywhere...I don't want to overdo it, I don't want to focus on that
forever, but I felt so bad because after September 11th I felt that I wanted
very much to do this performance because of what happened in NY and because
of what America had done, it was like somebody tying your hands...

Aztag- You have performed `Defixiones' in the US, Europe, and Australia. How
much interest did it create among Greek and Armenian communities on these
continents?

D.G.- The Armenians have been interested in my work much more than the
Greeks. I performed the work in LA, of course there are many more Armenians
in LA, but still, I've noticed a gigantic support from the Armenians and
some support from the Greeks. I think Greeks are not as mobilized (as the
Armenians)...the Greek are trying to do this Turkish-Greek friendship crap,
with friendship committees etc. When I was in Greece, some people told me
`oh, no Diamanda, were now trying to make Greek-Turkish friendship' and I
said `well, good for you but that doesn't mean I can't perform `Defixiones'
because people don't know the history, they have to know before they can get
past it'. And they said `Can't you just sing folk music?' I'm like `f---
you!'

Aztag- `Defixiones' contains works in more than 10 different languages.What
is the message here? Would it not have been easier for Americans to grasp it
if it were in English?

D.G.- What would they get out of it. Would they get an emotional message?
No, they would get my a little political view `isn't it terrible what the
Turks did to the Armenians?' well any idiot can say that. But I am Diamanda
and I work in a certain way, when I'm using different languages each
language has an emotional component, and active component, right out of the
blood that tells you a lot more than just a simple piece of information. And
I think that when you invest time in a language you know more about the
culture and how the culture thinks. At the end of the day I have to say I do
this for me, so that I can keep living an interesting life. I am not
somebody who is thinking `oh well, if I do it in 10 languages then 10
different people will understand it'. No, no, no, that's not me. That's a
politician's job, I'm not a politician and I'm not a rock singer, I'm just
doing this for me. So it's a little different. I do it as a composer.
Composers have traditionally worked with masses in many languages, they used
parts of the Old Testament then they take poets that have expressed their
point of view and they integrate the poets and they always do the poets in
the original language. That's the music of his soul. You don't take Adonis
and suddenly do it in English. A lot of Americans would do that but I just
say, you know, why don't you just write it yourself?

If they want to read it in English they can do research, they can get
scholarly work like the books of Hovannisian, Dadrian, and some Turkish
scholars. They shouldn't come to me if they want to do basic research
because after all I'm a composer.