Written by Sona Karapoghosyan
Armenian Film Society spoke with director Sareen Hairabedian about her debut feature documentary, My Sweet Land, as well as her experience of filming in Artsakh before and after the 2020 war, the origins of the subject matter, and the challenge of telling a personal story.
Sareen Hairabedian visited Artsakh for the first time in 2018, after completing the HBO short documentary We Are Not Done Yet, produced in collaboration with Community Building Art Works, a veteran and active duty service member charity organization that develops writing and art workshops for US veterans and their families. The documentary explores how US veterans use poetry and art to battle their traumas.
“The moment it was done, I felt an urge to go to Artsakh to tell the story of a society that doesn’t choose to fight but is born into a region where war could erupt at any moment," says Sareen Hairabedian. “Long ago, I had seen a picture from the mass wedding that happened in 2008 so my idea was to observe how children from these young families are growing up in a region like that." Without any connections but with a fair amount of research and language skills, she and her long-time collaborator and producer Azza Hourani traveled to Armenia. They went through different villages of Artsakh, and with the help of a local fixer, met and spoke with approximately 30 families that were participants of the mass wedding. In Martakert, they met 10-year-old Vrej, who later became the protagonist of the film.
Presenting the narrative from the perspective of a child offers a unique gateway to understanding such a story. Children are victims of atrocities, victims of the wars whose voices are never heard. “These kids are the sponges that absorb what war does to people in its simplest and rawest format. They don’t analyze it the way adults do, they just feel it and they react," says Sareen Hairabedian. “On the other hand, it is very important to show it in a very delicate manner to avoid retraumatizing the children, especially when they revisit their own stories through the film. Interestingly, children have the most basic answers to all these problems that adults don’t have solutions for, and the answers usually are: 'I don’t want war to happen,' 'I don't want my dad to go to war,' or 'I want him to come back.' It's extremely dark to see their futures become diminished in their land, but there is also some light and I believe that through lightness one can tell a story of something that is very complex."
The filmmakers had a "keep filming" motto that resulted in 500 hours of footage. "There was zero staging, just me and the camera, and I didn't define any particular cinematographic style for the film. I was following the kids and trying to be patient. I wasn’t interested in telling what’s happening beyond their doors or giving bigger political explanations. I was following their perspective and letting them lead me." In the end, the cinematography developed on its own— every time Sareen would leave Artsakh, she would watch the footage and find things that were missing that she would try to fix or add the following time. "I was learning through my own experience."
Simultaneously, while filming, the filmmakers were actively pitching the project in various film markets and platforms, mostly in Europe. They were faced with the same question on a number of occasions: "Why is the film one-sided?" The director always had the same response in that, as an Armenian, she has access to this region and is focused on telling the story of a boy growing up in a war zone. "It is so universal to stay on the level of humanity and childhood, it allowed to clean the mess of politicized stories and focus on the human aspect of what wars are doing to the children, to the land, to the people. In addition, by being Armenian, I’m already taking the side, I am assessing the story from an Armenian perspective, and since the catastrophe is so imbalanced, it’s almost impossible to put yourself in the middle and tell the story equally from both sides."
The start and end of the war made the story more urgent, as more professionals joined the project, including producer Azza Hourani (who joined this project since its inception), co-producers Julie Paratian and David Rane, who had a crucial role in the successful completion of the film, as well as another key collaborator, Armenian composer and piano player, Tigran Hamasyan.
Sareen initially reached out to the composer in December 2021 and expressed interest in collaborating on the project. “I always felt that if he writes the music for the film, specifically for Vrej, it will delicately enrich the story and provide heartfelt accents that carry the emotions forward."
The collaboration process was smooth and inspiring, as Sareen would send scenes and rough cuts, and Tigran would be inspired and write music to them. They would then get on a call and discuss what resonates better, or what kind of instrument speaks to them more. “Tigran was so enthusiastic, he was constantly building material for it. He truly believed in the story and was touched by it and all these were the recipes for him to pour his heart into it. Especially the last track ,“Ori Mori” a traditional lullaby from Western Armenia that he recreated, truly culminated the energies of the film, as he juxtaposed the peaceful and dreamy feelings that a lullaby carries, with the eerie reality that the children had to face.
After completing a film that had taken 100% of her attention and energy, Sareen has already started a new project, again full of passion, music, heart, and soul. Dedicated to the history of tango in Argentina, the story is told through the exploration of the back singer of the Rolling Stones who writes his first English language tango album and in the process of working discovers the black roots of tango. “It’s historical and very musical, and at the end of the day, it’s about the people, focusing on the untold stories of Afro-Argentine communities living in Argentina."
My Sweet Land premieres at Sheffield DocFest in Sheffield, England on Thursday, June 13.
