Author: Badalian Vardan

PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV: AZERBAIJAN WILL RESTORE ITS SOVEREIGNTY OVER NAGORNO-KARABAKH EITHER PEACEFUL OR MILITARY MEANS

Trend
July 28, 2011
Azerbaijan

“I have reiterated Azerbaijan’s position related to the ways of
settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and informed about the current
state of negotiations,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at
a news conference during Erdogan’s official visit to Azerbaijan. “I
would like to reiterate that the Azerbaijani people and the Azerbaijani
government are very grateful for Turkey’s position over this issue. It
is really friendly and brotherly attitude. We very much appreciate it.”

President Aliyev said the Azerbaijani lands are under occupation
for many years. More than 1 million Azerbaijanis were driven from
their native land and became refugees and IDPs as a result of this
occupation.

“An ethnic cleansing policy was pursued against us. Armenians
committed genocide against the Azerbaijanis. They committed the
Khojaly genocide. Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is recognized
by the international community, Nagorno-Karabakh is a primordial
and historical Azerbaijani lands. Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity
must be restored. Major international organizations have expressed
their position on the conflict resolution. The UN Security Council has
adopted four resolutions on this issue. The OSCE, European Parliament,
the Council of Europe and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
have adopted fair decisions and these resolutions are the basis for
addressing this issue,” Aliyev said.

President Aliyev once again congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a
convincing victory of his party in the parliamentary elections. Aliyev
expressed gladness with Erdogan’s visit to Azerbaijan – his homeland
after a month after the election .

“The Turkish-Azerbaijani relations are at the highest level. These
relations are of strategic nature and based on the principles of
friendship and brotherhood. We are linked with the historical roots
and cultural ties, our past and current political interests. We are
very pleased that the Turkish- Azerbaijan relations are developing
rapidly, and talks and discussions that we had during the prime
minister’s visit once again demonstrate how close we are to each
other,” Ilham Aliyev said.

All the issues on the agenda have been discussed today and extensive
exchange of views has been held, President Aliyev underscored. “We
reiterate that political relations are at the highest level. I can
say that the relations are at the top. There are excellent prospects
in the economic sphere. I am very pleased that the trade turnover
between our countries has increased in 2011. There are new plans and
proposals. We are considering investment proposals. Turkish companies
invest in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani companies invest in Turkey. To
date, the Azerbaijani companies have invested more than $ 4 billion
in the Turkish economy. Additional investments worth $ 6 billion
are supposed to be invested only in the petrochemical industry
in the coming years. The Turkish companies actively participate
in infrastructure projects of strategic importance implemented in
Azerbaijan and we are very pleased with their work,” he said.

“Moreover, we have today held an exchange of views on strengthening
security in the region. We talked about the prospects of the
Turkish-Azerbaijani cooperation in this field. Taking the advantage,
I would like to express my condolences to all the Turkish people
in connection with the deaths of our brothers in the recent bloody
terrorist attacks. We strongly condemn the acts of the terrorist
organization PKK. We have repeatedly stated our position on this
issue. Once again I want to say that Azerbaijan has officially
recognized the PKK as the terrorist organization and as always, is
close to the Turkish state and nation in the fight against it. We
strongly condemn all forms of terrorism and are absolutely convinced
that the fight against terrorism can only be effective if all states
work together. Our cooperation with Turkey in combating terrorism,
as well as in all areas, is at a very high level,” he said.

President Aliyev said they also spoke about energy issues.

“As you know, these relations have a long history. The
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline
are functioning successfully. We exchanged views on prospects for the
future. These are important issues for Turkey, and Azerbaijan. They
closely unite our countries. I believe the further cooperation will
also be successful.

The transport issues also occupy an important place in the
Turkey-Azerbaijan relations. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway construction
successfully runs. I would like to say that Azerbaijan has allocated
a loan worth nearly $800 million for the construction of the Georgian
railway, so that the issue was soon resolved and the railroad was
put into operation by late 2012.

Once again I want to say that our cooperation is high in all
areas. We hope that the rate will be maintained in the future and the
Turkish-Azerbaijani friendship and brotherhood relations will develop,”
Aliyev said.

President Aliyev also commented on President Serzh Sargsyan’s
statement, who said “We won the Nagorno-Karabakh, let the new
generation to even win Agri-Dagh”.

“Actually, I did not expect anything else from Sargsyan, since I
have met with him several times. I am well aware of his thinking. In
essence, it demonstrates Armenia’s aggressive nature. This country is
in the grip of problems. The number of those departing this country
hits tens of thousands of people. The economy is in full crisis –
poverty, destitution and hopelessness. No normal company operates in
the country. This country will die if it does not receive foreign
donations and foreign backers. Although the real population is 1.8
million, these people claim for ancestral, historical lands of Turkey.

”

“They think that they have solved the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. They
are wrong. Nagorno-Karabakh is and will remain as the Azerbaijani
land. The time will come, when Azerbaijan will restore its sovereignty
over Nagorno-Karabakh either by peaceful or military means.

But to voice territorial claims to such a great country as Turkey?! It
simply indicates that these people’ minds are missing something. They
do not live in the real world, but in a dream world. They need to wake
up from sleep, return to the real world and even to compare themselves
with Turkey. You cannot compare an elephant and an ant, “Aliyev said.

ARMENIAN SERVICEMEN OPEN FIRE ONLY IN EXTREME CASES – DEFENSE MINISTRY

Interfax
July 28, 2011
Russia

YEREVAN. July 28

Armenia honors ceasefire in the Karabakh conflict zone, Armenian
Defense Ministry press secretary David Karapetian said.

“The Armenian Armed Forces take reciprocal measures only in extreme
cases. If a civilian is hurt in the Armenian response to the breach
of ceasefire by Azerbaijani servicemen, the entire responsibility
for that rests upon Azerbaijan,” a source at the Azerbaijani Defense
Ministry said citing Karapetian to Interfax.

The Azerbaijani channel ANS said that an Armenian sniper had seriously
wounded Rakhiba Poladova, a resident of the Gazakh district. The
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry did not confirm the incident.

Karapetian also said Azerbaijan could apply to an international agency
for holding an investigation.

“It is traditional for the Azerbaijani media to report civilian or
military casualties in gunfire coming from the Armenian side. The
Azerbaijani media should also publish statistics of ceasefire
violations by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, which is growing day
after day. For instance, contract servicemen of the Armenian Armed
Forces Karen Gukasian, 35, and Manvel Vanesian, 24, were injured in a
violation of ceasefire by Azerbaijani servicemen on July 26,” he said.

DOUBLE STANDARDS IN WESTERN MEDIA
Soltan Ismaylov

Today’s Zaman
July 29, 2011
Turkey

When news of Norway’s enormous tragedy first reached the US, a CNN news
anchor invited a terrorism expert to speak about possible culprits.

Predictably, the guest pontificated about the al-Qaeda connection,
reminding of the “Muslim rage” against Norway for re-publishing
insulting cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad and of the nation’s
participation in bombing Libya.

The fact that there have been major terrorist attacks by Islamic
radicals is no secret, and such suspicions are not necessarily
unreasonable. However, the jump to hasty conclusions and the hyper
readiness to engage in guilt-by-association is a sad illustration of
the effect ideological propaganda has on any society, even one as open
and diverse as that of the US. Even sadder is that such bias was on
full display not on Rupert Murdoch’s infamous and borderline-racist
Fox News channel but on the self-proclaimed guardian of objective
reporting – CNN.

Rushed conclusions are not only irresponsible journalism, they are also
simply misleading and direct attention away from the real perpetrators
of massacres like the one in Norway. Muslim radicals should not be
excused, but neither should Christian terrorists and xenophobes like
Norway’s Anders Breivik. As those Muslims promoting extremist views
have frequently and rightly been called to atone for their sins, then
those who espouse anti-Muslim and far-right ideals and whose writing
and statements are uncomfortably close to Breivik’s line of thought
should perhaps think again about what exactly they are promoting.

The horrific scenes in Norway have proven what many around the world
have been stating for years – terrorism has no religion. This is a
problem of radicalism and there are no good terrorists. Muslims should
avoid the temptation to speak of Christian terrorism or Christian
fascism, even if the actions of the Norwegian domestic terrorist come
as close as one could to the very definition of fascism. Instead,
toning down ideological rhetoric on all sides would be an important
step forward.

Freedom of speech should not become an excuse for otherwise inexcusable
behavior. There are reasonable restrictions pertaining to public safety
accepted internationally – the classic example being not screaming
“fire” in a crowded theater. To deny that extremist rhetoric leads
to radical action is similar to denying that violence in the media
and entertainment has an affect on the psyche of those exposed to
it. From the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Giffords to domestic
terrorism in Norway, the harsh rhetoric of protecting the purity of
society has claimed real human victims. Unlike the numerous victims
of NATO’s massive bombing campaigns in the pursuit of democracy that
appear as detached statistics and, in any case look so different. The
Norwegian victims and the Nordic identity of the terrorist should
provoke some soul-searching among those experts who built their
careers on promoting the “clash of civilizations.”

More than a moral issue of long-overdue soul searching, the existing
double standards readily promoted by Western media are becoming a
security and safety issue. After all, public perceptions have been
shaped into suspicion of all persons of Middle Eastern descent,
but not of a blond European in a police uniform that could now be
questionable following the Oslo explosions.

Still, ideological rhetoric continues to be a convenient tool for
politicians. From the Muslim-bashing radicalism of the most vocal
opponents of the Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan to ridiculous
accusations against Turkey of disrespecting religious minorities,
distorted exaggerations and double standards remain the rule rather
than the exception in US and Western politics.

This convenience has become a trademark of increasingly lazy Western
journalism. CNN reporters, so fond of their electronic gadgets, spend
more time reading their viewers’ tweets and Facebook debates than
engaging in actual journalistic investigations. Not surprisingly,
the Washington Post, while dedicating ample space on its pages to
promoting the radical ethno-religious views of Armenian separatists
in Nagorno-Karabakh, found no place to report a despicable act of
terrorism against an Azerbaijani teenager who died from an Armenian
explosive placed in a child’s toy.

Looking outside ideologically defined stereotypes seems to go
beyond the basic requirements of professionalism for CNN and other
journalists; it is a practical issue, which when ignored can have
very costly consequences.

*Soltan Ismaylov is based in Azerbaijan.

ARMENIA SEEKS TO BECOME LIKE EU MEMBER STATES-PRESIDENT

news.am
July 29, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – The farewell ceremony of Polish President Bronislaw
Komorowski was held at Armenian presidential residence on Friday.

Prior to the ceremony, the two leaders discussed meetings and
discussions within the framework of Polish President’s visit to
Armenia and summed up the results, the presidential press service
informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“I would like to express my gratitude for the visit to Armenia. I
believe assistance to Armenia in European integration is important
and makes sense. We can also build close Armenian-Polish relations,
as there is a potential,” Komorowski noted.

President Sargsyan noted the two peoples have been on close terms for
centuries and Armenians are always happy to welcome the president of
a friendly country. According to Sargsyan, our country really seeks
to be like the EU member states and the support of a friendly country
is of great importance.

CHESS-MAD ARMENIA’S HEROES RETURN IN TRIUMPH

Agence France Presse(AFP)
July 29, 2011

YEREVAN – Armenia’s top chess players, lauded as heroes after winning
the 2011 World Team Chess Championship this week, vowed on Friday to
boost the small chess-mad country’s status in the game even further.

The team’s head coach said that future successes will be secured
through official support and an unusual new scheme to promote the game
among schoolchildren initiated by Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian,
a keen player who also heads the country’s Chess Federation.

“Because of this attention and care, we can improve our game,” coach
Arshak Petrosian told a press conference, two days after returning
from the tournament in China to a rapturous welcome from fans and
Sarkisian himself at Yerevan airport.

Sarkisian’s government decided this year to make chess a compulsory
subject in primary schools from September, investing around $1.5
million (one million euros) in a project to establish Armenia as a
global force in the game — a large sum in the impoverished country.

“This is a very important decision for the development and spread of
chess in the country,” Petrosian said.

“It doesn’t mean that every pupil will then become a professional
chess player, but chess develops logic and teaches people to think
flexibly and wisely,” he said.

When the players returned from China on Wednesday, their motorcade
was applauded through the streets of the capital by fans carrying
flowers and shouting “Armenia! Victory!”

Grandmasters are stars and important match results make headline news
in the ex-Soviet state of 3.2 million people, where the progress of the
12-day tournament was followed intently by large numbers of Armenians.

“Our guys showed that a small country can also become a chess
superpower,” a pensioner who gave his name as Garnik told AFP, not
looking up from his chessboard as he enjoyed an outdoor match in a
Yerevan park.

Armenia had already established itself as a serious competitor in
global tournaments.

The national team won gold at the biennial International Chess Olympiad
in 2006 and 2008, and the country’s leading player Levon Aronian is
currently ranked number three in the world, according to the World
Chess Federation.

GEORGIAN CHURCH IN RARE SPAT WITH GOVERNMENT
Fati Mamiashvili

Opposition parties in Georgia have seized on tensions between the
government and the influential Orthodox church, and are using the
split as an opportunity to attack President Mikhail Saakashvili.

The dispute took off on July 5 when parliament passed legislation
that allow any faith community to register for an organisational
status previously exclusive to the Orthodox Church.

Georgia’s western allies have long been demanded equal rights for
all religions.

The ancient Georgian Orthodox Church is the country’s dominant faith,
with more than 80 per cent of the population describing themselves
as adherents.

The legislative changes merely allow other faith groups to apply for
recognition as legal entities rather than as non-governments. But they
were enough to provoke several thousand people to gather in central
Tbilisi on July 9 and 10 to voice their anger at what they saw as an
attack on their church.

“Now other religions have got legal status. Even without it, they were
demanding to be given some Georgian churches, so in future they’ll
probably be given them,” one of the demonstrators, Lamara Gogua, said.

“This is a measure directed against Orthodoxy, and I cannot remain
silent.”

The church’s ruling Patriarchate gave a guarded response, urging
people to remain calm “despite the presence of reasons for alarm”.

The church synod, meanwhile, issued a statement asking political
leaders to consult the Patriarchate in advance of any future decisions
of this kind.

The head of the church, Patriarch Ilia II, enjoys more public trust
than any political figure in Georgia, surveys show.

Father Daniel, Metropolitan or bishop of Chiatura and Sachkhere, said,
“We must definitely say what we have to say, we must definitely make
the authorities understand what we are saying, and we must believe
that they will pay heed,” the metropolitan said.

Opposition leaders, who have been struggling to capitalise on
Saakashvili’s unpopularity over recent months, seized this opportunity,
demanding that the president exercise his powers to veto the changes
and stand up for the Georgian church. (See Georgian Voters Wary of
All Parties on the opposition.)

“The president must use his veto on this initiative, which was
discussed behind the patriarch’s back,” Irakli Alasania, leader of
the Our Georgia – Free Democrats party, said.

Levan Vepkhvadze, a Christian Democrat member of parliament, went
further on the offensive.

“We’re under no illusion that this decision was drafted and pushed
through without the approval or permission of the Georgia president.

So we will not ask him to veto it, as we are not that naïve,”
Vepkhvadze said.

“Passing this law in an unprecedentedly short space of time, without
considering the views of the patriarch or the public, is a dangerous
step for a state to take.”

Faced with such a heated response, and the danger of being outflanked
by the opposition, the authorities were forced to restate their
loyalty to the church.

The speaker of parliament, David Bakradze, was quick to remind
everyone that in 2002, legislators awarded special status to the
Orthodox Church.

He said all that had happened now was that other faith groups had
been granted rights to apply for the same “legal entity” status
as was currently held by institutions ranging from kindergartens
to universities and clinics. Meanwhile, “the only legal entity with
constitutional status in this country is the Georgian Orthodox Church”,
he said.

Saakashvili’s spokesperson Manana Manjgaladze also sought to calm the
tensions, saying, “The Georgian state would never take any step that
ran contrary to its relationship with the Georgian Orthodox Church”.

None of this was enough to dispel the angry mood, and opponents
of the changes vastly outnumbered supporters in media and internet
discussions. In a Facebook poll, more than 90 per cent of the 11,000
people who responded said they were against the changes.

Analysts say the level of outrage is likely to damage Saakashvili.

“It’s a really delicate issue, and the more politicians steer clear
of it the better,” Giorgi Khukhashvili, head of the Centre for Civic
Projects, said. “Political interference in these matters can only do
harm and spoil the current atmosphere of tolerance.”

Paata Zakareishvili, director of the Institute for Nationalism and
Conflict Studies, pointed out that the changes to the law could win the
authorities a few more friends among Georgia’s various minority groups.

Some 6.5 per cent of the country’s inhabitants are Armenians with
their own unique Christian church, and 5.7 per cent are Muslim
Azerbaijanis. (See also Concerns Over Anti-Muslim Discrimination in
Georgia.) “The government’s negative rating among the electorate has
already peaked – it could not deteriorate any further,” Zakareishvili
said.

“This decision could even help raise its approval rating among ethnic
and religious minorities.”

Fati Mamiashvili is a freelance journalist in Georgia.

The article is published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Georgia Plans ‘Circassian Genocide Memorial’

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 29 Jul.’11 / 18:16

Georgia, which has become the first country to recognize 19th century
massacre and deportations of Circassians by the Tsarist Russia as
genocide, plans to open a memorial next year to commemorate the
victims.

Anaklia, a Black Sea coast village close to breakaway Abkhazia, has
been selected as a site for the planned memorial, Papuna Davitaia,
Georgia’s state minister for diaspora issues, said on July 29.

He said that the memorial’s design would be selected through a
competition planned to be announced by the state commission in charge
of this issue in September.

The Georgian government wants to open the memorial in May, 2012 when
the Circassian diaspora will commemorate 148th anniversary of the
genocide, Davitaia said.

The Georgian Parliament passed on May 20 a resolution saying that mass
killings of the Circassians by the Tsarist Russia in second half of
19th century, accompanied by “deliberate famine and epidemics”, should
be recognized as “genocide”.

In a separate, July 1 resolution the Parliament instructed the
government to undertake measure for opening a memorial and also
Circassian cultural center.

LePoint.fr
Lundi 25 Juillet 2011

Un Turc condamné à 22 ans de prison pour l’assassinat d’un journaliste
d’origine arménienne

Le meurtrier du journaliste turc d’origine arménienne Hrant Dink a été
condamné lundi à un total de 22 ans et 10 mois de prison par un
tribunal d’Istanbul. Figure de proue de la minorité arménienne de
Turquie, Hrant Dink avait été abattu le 19 janvier 2007 devant les
locaux de l’hebdomadaire bilingue turco-arménien Agos, qu’il
dirigeait, à Istanbul. Le tribunal a dans un premier temps condamné
Ogün Samast à la prison à vie, puis a réduit sa peine à 21 ans et demi
du fait qu’il n’était pas majeur au moment des faits, mais l’a aussi
condamné à 16 mois de prison supplémentaires pour possession illégale
d’arme. Avant le verdict, l’accusé a mis en avant sa mauvaise
éducation et a affirmé qu’il avait été manipulé par la presse. “Où
est-ce que j’ai entendu parler d’Agos? Où est-ce que j’ai entendu
parler de Hrant Dink, le traître à la patrie ? Dans (les journaux)

Vatan et Hürriyet !” s’est écrié Ogün Samast. Bien que l’accusé ait
admis le meurtre, son avocat, Me Levent Yildirim, a demandé en vain
l’annulation du procès, du fait de vices de procédure et du statut de
mineur, non reconnu selon lui par les juges, de son client au moment
des faits. Dink oeuvrait pour la réconciliation entre les Turcs et les
Arméniens au regard de leur passé sanglant, mais les nationalistes lui
en voulaient d’avoir employé pour le massacre des Arméniens sous
l’Empire ottoman le terme de “génocide”, qu’Ankara rejette
farouchement. En septembre, la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme
(CEDH) avait estimé que les autorités turques n’étaient pas parvenues
à prendre les mesures appropriées pour protéger Dink et prévenir un
assassinat qui avait secoué la Turquie, et avait provoqué une vague
d’indignation dans le monde entier.

news.am, Armenia
July 30 2011

Premiere of Lost and Found in Armenia scheduled for Christmas holidays (video)

July 30, 2011 | 11:01

YEREVAN. – Shooting of Lost and Found in Armenia, a movie
predominantly made in Armenia, are finished. Armenian News-NEWS.am
correspondent managed to interview the producers of the film Maral
Djerejian (Sideways) and Valerie McCaffrey (American History X, Neo
Ned).

The producers said they have been planning to shoot a movie in Armenia
for a couple of years already, but there were constant financial
problems.

`This is an entertainment film, really awesome piece for laughing. I
guess the actors managed to put into life all the great scenes
elaborated in the scenario,’ said the producer of Lost and Found in
Armenia, producer of Glendale based Red Tie films company Maral
Djerejian, adding that they managed to involve young but already
famous Hollywood actors.

Angela Sarafyan (On the Doll, Kabluey, The Twilight Saga: Breaking
Dawn) and Jamie Kennedy (Bug, Malibu’s Most Wanted, Sol Goode, Son of
the Mask, Extreme Movie, Spring Break `83, Bending the Rules), the two
leading actors are already famous in Hollywood. Angela Sarafyan has
moved to the U.S. and did not visit Armenia for 24 years.

`Both of them fell in love with Armenia and Armenians. I must say that
for Hollywood actors the filming conditions are at least unusual. They
are accustomed to comfort, but found none of that here. They had
really difficult first week but at length both Angela and Jamie fell
in love with Armenians and their hospitality. The features, the
colour, and the peculiarities of Armenia in comedy airs, reflect on
Armenia-Turkey relations, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,’ said the
producer, giving a shot account of the scenario.

According to the scenario, several American youngsters go to Turkey
for holidays and while enjoying their stay decide to try a new
entertainment – parasail flight. Their strong resolution, however,
dwindles as sea storm their boat but the Trukish captain’s encouraging
words prevail on common sense. As a result of parasail mishap U.S.
Senator’s son Billy finds himself in a small village in Armenia, where
at first he is taken for Turkish spy. Here start Blliy’s unbelievable
adventures that will change his life forever.

`We did not work to preserve geographical accuracy. It’s evident that
one cannot reach Armenia from a Turkish seaside and that would not
possibly worry a comedy lover who looks for non-formal, funny
moments,’ said Djerejian.

According to the producer Armenian actors Mikael Poghosyan and Hrant
Tokhatyan also participated in the shootings.

`There are many talented actors in Armenia, there are many experts but
they lack the experience of working with modern cinema. The problem
will be solved if people engage in film production in Armenia,’ said
Djerejian, adding that a single film could greatly promote general
knowledge about Armenia worldwide.

`We did not make Lost and Found in Armenia for Armenian audience only.
It is just a comedy and that is the precondition of its success, I
guess. The film is based on a universal story that is applicable
everywhere in the world. It was merely our wish to make it in Armenia.
We could have shot the film elsewhere because of poor level of
technical equipment in Armenia but the producers of the film are
Armenians, the director, Gor Kirakosian, is also Armenian and we
wanted to make it here,’ said McCaffrey. `We have huge potential four
boosting film industry. A great number of Armenians work in Hollywood
nowadays, but most of them do not pay attention to media. The parents
consider medicine, law, and economics as serious professions for their
children, forgetting that we raised many famous writers and art
people.’

Asked what the Armenians need to fully exploit their potential in
Hollywood industry, the producer said that people should support each
other, invest not only into schools and churches but also into film
industry.

`When I visited the Armenian Genocide Museum, I got astonished that so
many renowned people have touched upon and condemned the Genocide.
Nobody actually knows about that, meanwhile each of those stories
could make a splendid film scenario,’ said McCaffrey, adding that it
would have the same effect as Schindler’s list of Steven Spielberg.

Premiere of Lost and Found in Armenia is scheduled for Christmas
holidays. The authors plan to submit the film for Sundance, Oscar and
Golden Globe in the category of best foreign language film.

watch trailer at

Sydney Morning Herald , Australia
July 30 2011

>From gestation to realisation, lessons of a novice film-maker

by Dani Valent

The creation of Here, a road movie, was something of a road movie itself.

TEN years after I started writing Here with New York filmmaker Braden
King, I arrived on set in Armenia: a puddled driveway, a crumble-down
hotel, a gleaming church backed by a shy rainbow. As I was introduced
to the 40-person crew, the script supervisor, Gaby Yepes, hid the
script from me. ”You don’t want to see this,” she said, letting long
hair fall over her clipboard. ”There’s red pen all over it.”

Her job was to record what happened as the film was filmed.

The script, the document that I knew intimately, every comma, every
nuance sweated over, was victim to reality: actors changed lines,
night fell so shots were rethought, sheep didn’t dart across the road
the way they were supposed to. I could have felt devastated,
protective, outraged at the licence being taken (naughty sheep!), but
I felt excited: how amazing to create a template for all this
activity, close attention and each clapperboard call of ”Action”.

Later that day we drove to a field where lead actor Ben Foster put on
a yellow raincoat, picked up a surveyor’s tripod and became Will
Shepard, the cartographer we created on the page years before.
”There’s our guy,” I said to Braden, marvelling at the magic of the
process: we wrote him and there he is, walking around, being real.

What seemed less real was the scene around me. There was our lead
actress, Lubna Azabal, having make-up applied on a stool in a paddock.
Standing in the long grass like an apparition was a high-ranking
priest, a beatific black-robed minder assigned to the production by
the Armenian Orthodox Church.

Around us, pale mountains drew a jagged horizon, a backdrop for tiny
Armenian hamlets where history and ruin are written in the buildings
and roads and in the faces of the villagers with their donkeys,
sunflowers and doughty Lada cars.

Here is a road movie and a love story about an American cartographer
and an Armenian expatriate photographer. But Braden and I didn’t start
thinking of it like that. We met in 1999 while I was working in New
York travel writing for Lonely Planet. We got to talking at a party,
discovered a mutual obsession with maps, threw bits of narrative at
each other and they stuck. We ran out, found a bar, started writing on
napkins (just like in the movies!), and when I came home to Melbourne
we continued by email and phone.

A bit later – diverted by babies, years and a million words of
journalism – we had a script.

Early in the process I warned Braden that I wasn’t a real filmmaker
like he was, scarcely knew my crossfades from my jumpcuts, and hadn’t
updated my favourite film since Wings of Desire in 1989. He told me to
shut up heaps of times but that feeling persisted.

In 2007, we took the script to the Sundance Institute Screenwriters
Lab, an intensive workshop that matches writers with industry mentors.

I flew to the wildflower-dotted mountains of Utah, anxious that I’d
walk into conversations that I wouldn’t understand. And, in fact, that
did happen, and I stamped the ground looking for a hole to swallow me.
What also occurred were meetings with smart and accomplished
filmmakers (Atom Egoyan, Walter Mosley, Susan Shilliday, Howard
Rodman, John August and Gyula Gazdag) who asked difficult, energising
questions about the world we’d created with our writing.

Octogenarian screenwriter, the gracious and penetrating Stewart Stern
(he wrote Rebel Without a Cause), led an automatic writing session
that sent my hand racing across the page and my mind traipsing into
the mountains. We were asked to write what our films were really
about. In a scrawl I wrote about ”layers of meaning, darkness
unwrapping itself into expansion, understanding that things sometimes
need to change, truth as conjecture …” Later, I walked in the hills
until I was lost, coming upon a deer dismembered by a mountain lion. I
let myself own the notion of being a screenwriter, at least for now.

Most of the writing I do involves me in a room. I write, I press
”send”, it gets published. It’s clean. Filmmaking is incredibly
unwieldy and difficult. We wrote, we pressed send (and send and send)
and after years of work by lots of people, mostly by the director,
Braden King, there’s a two-hour film. It’s called Here, the script is
covered in red pen, and it’s about a man, a woman, maps, travel and
truth as conjecture.

Here screens on Wednesday at 6.30pm and Saturday at 4pm. Dani Valent
and Braden King will participate in a Q&A at both sessions. See
miff.com.au.