Documentarian Bared Maronian Tackles the Brutal Recent History of Artsakh

Later, Petrosyan himself became a victim as well as an observer of the tragedy. “He lost his dad. Finding people who are willing to relive the stories, the most difficult parts of their lives on camera,” Maronian said, is very difficult. “These are very personal experiences that maybe 1 percent of individuals are willing to share. It was very difficult for us to record or listen to but just imagine how difficult it was for them.”

“The way I try, and hopefully I am successful enough, is to make the film understandable to a non-Armenian about Armenian topics,” he said.

Maronian praised the entities that funded “Genocide 2.0.”

“Without funding, we can’t move,” he said, adding “We are very lucky to have organizations like the Vahe Fattal Foundation and the Cultural Impact Foundation.”

Vahe Fattal Foundation Chair Yervant Nahikian was present at the June screening, where he spoke about the organization’s namesake and its efforts. In turn, Maronian gave Nahikian the Trdat the Architect Award.

The award is apt because “Mr. Nahikian is also an architect. He has built a lot of structures in Massachusetts and designed the Weston Greek church,” he said. “It was a true honor to work with VFF, especially considering that Vahe Fattal designed the Artsakh flag. The foundation was also the major contributor to this project.”

And, he added, “he was the architect of this project.”

Maronian also praised Nicole Babikian Hajjar for her help. “Nicole was the vital conduit for this project, serving on the boards of both VFF and CIF. I am deeply grateful for her friendship,” he said.

He added a special thanks to the Gulabi Gulbenkian Foundation as well as Jackie Abramian and the production team. “My co-producer, Jackie, put together a diverse and brilliant academic advisory board. I also consider myself incredibly lucky to have worked with the best international production team spanning the US, Canada, Europe, Armenia, and Artsakh. I just remembered that our 7-minute version of the film was nominated for a 2024 Suncoast Regional Emmy Award in the Religion/Short Form Content category, and we have started hearing good news about the feature-length film from the industry.”

Faces of Persecution

Maronian also singled out the Cultural Impact Foundation (CIF) and its Chair Dr. Chris Sassouni for their help. “Dr. Sassouni and I conceived the idea for a documentary series about highlighting the most vulnerable, voiceless religious and ethnic minorities who have been persecuted and ignored by mainstream media. CIF’s mission perfectly aligns with this initiative: to commission projects that reveal acts of human kindness and heroism in the face of adversity,” he said.

Maronian stressed that “Genocide 2.0” is the third film in a series started in 2020, titled the “Faces of Persecution” series. The organization is an educational documentary series focusing on religious persecution around the world.

Two years ago, he completed the documentary “10 Years On,” about the Yazidi Genocide for the project, which he said got an excellent reception in Europe. “Armenia is portrayed as a model of a country for religious freedom. There are over 35,000 Yazidis in Armenia as citizens. They practice their religion without issues and are part of the society,” he added.

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), also known as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or Daesh, is an extremist violent group that has overrun parts of countries in the Middle East. In Sinjar, Syria, in 2014, the group was responsible for the dispersal of the millennial-old Yazidi (Yezidi) community. Their actions led to the deaths of between 2100 and 5,000, while around 6,000 women and children were kidnapped by the group and forced into sexual slavery.

A Canadian film festival recently contacted him about showing “10 Years On” in October in London, Ontario.

He was especially proud of this renewed interest in the Yazidi genocide and the film, because one of the survivors of the ISIS,  a slave, now lives in London, Ontario.

“They’re amazing survival stories. I see a lot of similarities between the Armenians and Yazidis,” he said.

The next chapter the organization will focus on the persecution of Christian Nigerians in the country’s Kaduna state.

More episodes are slated to be produced, pending funding.

Maronian is a graduate of Haigazian University in Beirut and a graduate of the Broadcast Career Institute of Palm Beach, Florida. His production credits include a large number of award winning national, regional, and local television programming for the American PBS network spanning over twenty years. One of Maronian’s works, Orphans of the Genocide has reached over 50.6 million households by way of national television broadcasting and satellite distribution such as Direct TV and Dish Network.

To find out more about Maronian and his documentaries, visit https://baredmaronian.com/