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Sona Avagyan

"After Water There Is Sand": American-Armenian Film Director Deals with Loss and Roots

"My grandfather loved taking pictures of the family on vacation. He always wanted to go to Alaska and photograph Alaska. After he passed away my grandmother, my mother and aunt went to Alaska to do what he couldn't do. So that is where the idea of the film came from and I thought it would be nice and important to do the film in Armenia," recounts American-Armenian film director Saro Varjabedian.

He was in Armenia for the first time this August to shoot his film "After Water There is Sand." The director has taken the title of the film from the Armenia proverb of the same name which he explains in the following way: the water goes, the sand remains, the person goes and the memory remains.

The sand is the memory of the film's main character - American-Armenian woman Tamar - about her deceased husband with whom she had lived for 60 years. In the film the 80-year old Tamar comes to Armenia with her two daughters for the first time to fulfill her husband's dream - to photograph his family in Armenia in front of Mount Ararat.

The film is dedicated to the memory of Saro's grandfather who passed away 4 years ago. The script is also, to a certain extent, connected to the director's grandfather. "I was very interested in exploring how you make peace with a person's loss. And my idea for the film was to get closer to that person by doing the thing that the person loved," says Saro.

On the other hand, he wanted to learn more about Armenia and his Armenian ancestry by coming to Armenia and shooting a film here.

Saro says that after having shot the film dedicated to his grandfather he feels better. When the grandfather was alive, Saro had the idea that he would be around forever. "One of things that I still regret is that I didn't spend more time with him when he was around. I don't think that will change. But all I can do now is to make the most of my time and make sure I am spending time with my grandmother and the other family members that are still around, making sure I don't make the same mistake," the director says.

With the film, Saro wants to deliver the thought to the viewers that even after suffering a loss of a husband of 60 years there is still a life to be lived, that you can find new meaning in life and that new meaning for overseas Armenians could be reconnecting with their identity and family.

Though Tamar doesn't manage to fulfill her husband's dream in the film, because the Russian guards don't allow to take pictures on the border in front of Ararat, the director believes what is more important is that Tamar gets more connected to her two daughters through this experience; that they become stronger as a family.

"And more important is that through her daughters, through the taxi driver, by being in Armenia, she learns to make peace with the husband's passing. She understands that more important is not the picture, it's that she experienced this thing with her family like her husband always wanted to do," says Saro Varjabedian.

In the film "After Water There is Sand", there are almost no men. This is a film about 4 Armenian women. An important film character is the taxi driver who is also a woman and takes Tamar and her daughters to a border village. Everybody tells Saro that there are no female taxi drivers in Armenia but Saro is sure that in Yerevan and Gyumri there are 2-3 female taxi drivers, though he hasn't seen them.

In the film, the story of the taxi driver is like that of Tamar - she has also lost her husband and drives a taxi because her husband was a taxi driver. Saro says if the taxi driver were a male, he would not have the same psychological connection with Tamar.

In Sevan, Saro saw the statue of Akhtamar and heard the real story about Akhtamar there. All the same, Saro liked the changed version of the legend which he had been told before. He spontaneously decided to put the very changed version of story of Akhtamar in his film: one day Tamar was prevented from going to light the flame and her beloved got lost and drowned and when she heard the man's scream, Tamar felt so guilty that she stayed there turning into a statue which waits for the beloved man.

At first sight this version of "Akhtamar" doesn't have anything common with the script of the film "After Water There is Sand." But for the director the connection is obvious - Tamar from the film is also waiting for her late husband.

Saro has only to shoot small pick-ups. Afterwards, he will edit the film and submit it to all the major international and Armenian film festivals. Saro has written the script of the film himself with the help of his American-Armenian classmate, director Margot Arakelian.

Saro Varjabediann now studies at Columbia University. As a cameraman, he has participated in many film shoots. "After Water There is Sand" is his 3rd short film as a director. He will submit the film as his graduate thesis.

The lecturers at Columbia University have understood and liked the script of the film because there is a universal message in it: everyone loses a family member, a loved one and suffers because of it. "And my teachers were very supportive of my very specific cultural identity. So I think they are very excited about it," Saro says.

He is sure that the best a director can hope for is a film that makes people think about life philosophically and which emotionally impacts them. He hopes that "After Water There is Sand" will make people ask questions and teach people something about Armenian culture or family and relationships.

At the end of the film, Tamar decides to continue traveling within Armenia and to see the rest of the country. Saro has also travelled during his first visit to Armenia. He has been to Gyumri, Jermuk, Sevan, Shushi, Stepanakert, Dilijan, and has visited Tatev and Noravank.

He says that the nature of Armenia is "amazingly beautiful", and people in the villages were so warm that whenever they would see that he was not local and spoke Armenian with great difficulty, they wanted to help him, even to feed him.

"In Stepanakert I was supposed to call a friend and then he was going to pick me up and take me around. But when I got there, my phone didn't work and I had no Internet, I had no way of getting in touch with anyone. I entered many stores saying "This is busted. I can't make a phone call (աս կոտրած է", "չեմ կրնար զանգեմ). That's all I can say. I found one store with a guy, he knew English. He called from the store's phone to my friend. Then he gave me coffee, water. The only information I had was a business card of the Naregatsi Centre in Shushi. He arranged someone to take me to Shushi and promised to take care of me," Saro tells.

At the same time, Saro notes that everyone he has talked to in Armenia has said that finding work is very difficult. In the words of the American-Armenian director, living conditions in Armenian villages, compared to the standards of the life he has lived and seen in America, are very bad. For instance, there is no running water in the houses and you have to fetch water in backets. And in Shushi it seemed to Saro that the buildings are going to pieces.

2nd, 3rd and 4th photos have been provided by Saro Varjabedian

Comments (1)

LOLA A.
VERY PROUD SARO THAT YOU ARE FROM HOLY MARTYRS SCHOOL GRADUATE,AND DOING THIS FILM...YOU ARE A HERO IN MY EYES...BRAVO GOOD LUCK IN YOUR FILM PRODUCTIONS...NEXT AGOYAN IS BORN....SUCCSES TO THE RAOD OF FAME...

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