Anna Maxim Discusses Career and Weightlifting Film ‘The Reverse Side of the Medal’

As a child, she enjoyed assembling everyone to portray circus acts and receive prizes. She made her own prizes out of whatever toys or statues there were in the house and instructed everyone to give her one. Her sister advised her to apply to the Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinematography and, Maxim said, she was only accepted with great difficulty, being practically the last one on the list.

She said that Armen Mazmanyan, her teacher at the Institute, forbade students to appear in television soap opera serials through the third year of the program, but afterwards she began to work in this arena. She worked ten years as an actress, appearing in a number of serials such as “Generali aghjiku” [The General’s Daughter] (2012-2013) and “Urishi Hogin” [Stranger’s Soul] (162 episodes, 2015-16) as well as in supporting roles in comedy films such as “Chikago Tsaghkdzor Tranzit” (2012) and “Siro gortsakits” (2015) and action films like “Chghjikner: Chezok goti” [Bats: Neutral Zone] (2012) before she stopped and instead went to Moscow in 2017 to learn directing at the S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK). She felt the institute in Russia was the most serious one in the region, she said, and she had no problem studying in Russian. Maxim noted that she has always loved Russian literature, and never mixes Russian politics with art.

She filmed several short films in this period. The first two were short films, while the third, “Aniko,” was some 50 minutes long and served as her diploma work in Moscow. Maxim said, “In general, if you look at the journey the artist has travelled, short or long, you understand that the person usually speaks about the same thing/topic in different stories.”

Her first film was called “Taraskhalnerov Karot” [Longing with Misspellings]. It was about a village teacher whose son was in the army. This teacher was so committed to the preservation of the Armenian language that whomever he encountered he would teach Armenian, just like his students, said Maxim. Even when his son wrote letters from the army, he corrected them with red ink and sent them back, not allowing the mother to read them. On the one hand his longing was suffocating. On the other hand, Maxim explained, when a man has principles, he must never betray them.

The second film was about a family whose child had died due to burns experienced during the Trndez festival. That couple could not return to their everyday lives until, as the result of defending the child of a neighbor, they decided to have a child again. That film, Maxim said, was about not losing hope for the continuation of life.

“‘Aniko,’” said Maxim, “is the story of my childhood, of how I liked literature. Generally, directors wait until the end of their lives to film about their childhood, but I decided to do the opposite.” The main topic of the film is Aniko’s summer vacation in Tavush, in the northeast of Armenia. Maxim’s grandparents grew up in Tavush and though she and her parents were born in Yerevan, and her mother’s side is from Goris in Syunik, Maxim said she considers herself a “Tavushtsi.”

She said she had to film “Aniko” with practically no budget and the assistance of friends, yet it won international prizes, beating out a number of large budget films. And she thinks she knows why: because it was a very honest film.

“Generally, when professionalism comes, the creator becomes less honest,” Maxim said. “As a result of professionalism, he may be able to create good films but that cannot be long lasting if there is not truly that sincerity. For that reason, if you have noticed, the latest films of successful directors are generally very weak because they are more about professionalism. I hope that my love may help me not to lose that.”

As far as which filmmakers Maxim likes who may have influenced her, she declared that the films of the Soviet period, including Armenian films by Henrik Malyan or Frunze Dovlatyan, are impressive, but the heritage of world cinema, especially Italian Neorealism and French New Wave, is also important. She said, “I find myself more cosmopolitan in the sense of culture, in that for me a good film, good cinematographic art, does not have national boundaries with the exception of certain instances.”

Nevertheless, she said, “No matter how much you learn, no matter how impressed and inspired you may be, what is most important is that you realize what is in your heart — not try to copy someone else but be able to recognize and learn and then create something that is your own.”

Before making “The Reverse Side of the Medal,” Maxim served as co-director of the film “The Armenian” [Hay haye] (2021) with Mikayel (“Michael”) Poghosyan, who also wrote the script and acted in that film.

Making ‘The Reverse Side of the Medal’

The process of writing the script for “The Reverse Side of the Medal” and then filming and editing it took two years, which Maxim said was a very short time considering all that was involved, including covering four seasons, getting the right results from the actors, and filming on a level appropriate for Europe and the rest of the world.

She had to apply to the National Film Fund of Armenia to obtain financing and found out on January 28 that the application deadline was February 28. She said that she had only done interviews of Avdalyan and others involved in her life so far. She realized she said that in one month she would have to write the script. After listening to 72 hours of interviews, she told herself that she could not leave her room until she wrote it.

She also read an American book, How to Write a Movie in 21 Days, which evidently helped her succeed in meeting the deadline. Thinking about the stress, she said, “Now, when you remind me, I am just saying the words, but when I remember it, I just want to cry.”

The budget for the filming was not very large, so that Maxim said that a lot of equipment was lacking. She had to film the incident of an automobile accident in Moscow without having basic equipment as a result.

While in Armenian many protest that there is not enough money for making films, Maxim said that an even more important problem is a lack of specialists and experience, so that collaboration and exchange of experience with European or American companies and experts, including those Armenians living abroad, would be very helpful. That is something she would like to do on her next film, she said.

She did not act in her first three films. “I had even become cold concerning my specialty, but through this role [of Avdalyan], which returned life to me in the acting world,” she said with a laugh, “I understood that I had learned directing in order to film good films for me in which I can act.”

Maxim said that though there are some extra demands when the director is acting in a scene, it does have the advantage of concrete knowledge of what the director and script demand of you as an actor and may also save time during studio editing. Moreover, she stated: “When I had to undertake this film, I recalled Orson Well’s “The Citizen,” which for me is one of the best international films, where he served as chief actor, director, producer and screen writer. I thought that if it succeeded with him, it could succeed with me too and it seems that it did.”

The main events of the film are factual, Maxim said, though the order of some were changed. The marriage scene, in which the weight was placed on the barbell just like a ring on the finger of the spouse did not take place in reality, she said, but was a directorial addition to strengthen the meaning of the film.

In the after-screening discussion with the audience, Maxim confessed that it was very hard for her as an actress to learn the dialect of Gyumri (Leninakan), as she was always inclined to speak in the Tavush dialect, but in the end she said the people from Leninakan were satisfied.

She said in response to an audience question that “The Reverse Side of the Medal” was in Armenia’s 2024 Oscars competition but the 46 members of the Armenian Film Academy chose a different film, which was 70 percent Russian and had little chance to win anything under international conditions then.

In the interview, she observed that so far the film has not yet been shown at big European or American film festivals. It is represented by her production company, called Maxim Production, but she said she wished to focus her energy on creating her next film, so she hoped that someone will be found who can be flexible in dealing with this matter. Maxim said that she came to the United States in part to prepare for this new film but is not yet ready to speak about it. After her US trip, she was going to Europe to participate in more screenings of “The Reverse Side of the Medal.”

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At the February screenings of “The Reverse Side of the Medal” in Arlington, HCA leaders Naira Balagyozian and Raya Gevorgyan welcomed guests and moderated questions to the director from the audience after the presentation.