The Armenian Film Foundation Survivor Testimonies Available on USC Shoah Visual History Archive

In his lifetime, Hagopian recorded nearly 400 eyewitness testimonies of Armenian Genocide survivors and witnesses on 16mm film from 1972 to 2005 for a series of documentaries. Dr. Hagopian, who passed away in December 2010 at age 97, ultimately produced 17 films about Armenians and the Armenian Genocide. In partnership with USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive (VHA), Dr. Hagopian agreed to turn over raw footage of the nearly 400 interviews so they could be integrated into the VHA. These testimonies (https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/armenian) are available to scholars, students and researchers online. The VHA allows users to search through and view over 54,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide, including the Armenian Genocide, making it one of the most comprehensive online archives in the world (https://vhaonline.usc.edu/login).

Interviews were conducted and recorded throughout the world in 13 countries, primarily in English and Armenian — some in rare Armenian dialects, though other interview languages include Arabic, Greek, Spanish, French, Kurdish, Turkish, German, and Russian. About half a dozen interviews were conducted by Carla Garapedian after 2011 ( https://sfi.usc.edu/vha/access).

In addition, the Armenian Film Foundation and the UCLA Promise Armenian Institute have recently announced they will collaborate on a range of projects that support Armenian film and photography at UCLA (https://www.international.ucla.edu/armenia/article/248208).

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The Witness Trilogy (http://armenianfilm.org/drupal/the-witnesses-trilogy) is a series of three documentary films written, directed and produced by Dr. Hagopian and based on his filmed interviews of 400 survivors of and eyewitnesses to the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Dr. Hagopian chronicles the near extinction of the Armenian people against the sweeping canvas of the lack of human rights and the absence of democratic traditions and principles in the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The films document the Turkish leaders’ actions as a unified and systematic program of annihilation of the Armenian homeland in the Turkish Ottoman Empire, with transportation of Armenian deportees by rail to the far reaches of the Der Zor desert, and massacres and ethnic cleansing operations along the Euphrates River. Amazon Prime is showing these three documentary films that help answer the question: Who are the Armenians? Watch “Voices from the Lake,” “The River Ran Red,” and “Germany and the Secret Genocide” on Amazon Prime. Go to: https://prime.armenianfilm.org/river-ran-red/.

All films (on DVD format) cost $19.95 except Supplement to “The Forgotten Genocide,” which costs $14.95. To purchase, go to:  http://armenianfilm.org/drupal/affstore.