By Sevan Boghos-Deir Badrossian

It's a privilege to work in the Arts.

I can speak louder through the Arts.

                        - Adrineh Gregorian

It is well known how Armenia was the major source for all Armenians in support of culture and maintaining the Armenian Identity, the nostalgia and the belonging that helped in making the interaction possible. Both Armenia and the Diaspora kept supporting each other within their abilities. The cultural support was more often from Armenia. However, in Adrineh's case, she chose to support the motherland with all means by investing her talents and abilities there. Yet still she has a lot to give and say through her creativity, loud voice and advocacy.

Adrineh is not an ordinary woman who enjoys the luxury or the pleasures people have in the US. On the contrary, the life she chose, despite many difficulties, made her a distinguished young Armenian American with a goal in her life, and gave her the opportunity to use her talents and abilities to participate in the development of the new Republic of Armenia.

Since she was 18, her vision was focused on Armenia, which became the factory where Adrineh made her name and career. She has connected with her motherland and became a resident of Yerevan `to live a quality life,' as she put it. According to her, `quality' is to live simple and appreciate life and people around her. To experience what is truth? Beauty? Pride? Disappointment? Bitterness? Basically, the normal ups and downs of a society full of stories, but these stories are our own. They carry our signature, our flavor, the Armenian flavor, the Armenian `Tsav.'

When I heard about Adrineh's film, `Back to Gürün,' winning in the Golden Apricot International Film Festival Special Jury Prize, I decided to find out more about her, and her goal to highlight important people and causes. Although we were 7000 miles apart I decided to talk to her. Technology made it easy, but what made it easier was how down to earth she was, how little she wanted to dwell on accomplishments and drill right down to the issues and matters that must be put under the microscope or voiced out loud.

It's impossible to introduce Adrineh in a glimpse. Between documentary films, photography and painting, her accomplishments deserved to be known for their impact on building and promoting a productive and healthy society in Armenia.

Back to Armenia

Adrineh was born in Los Angeles, USA. She graduated from AGBU Manoogian Demirjian Armenian High School, UCLA, and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She was first introduced to the idea of working in Armenia when she participated in Land and Culture Organization's volunteer campaigns in Datev and Artsakh.

In 2008, Adrineh was awarded a United States Fulbright Grant and moved to Armenia to research reproductive healthcare and to make documentary films.

Documentary films are a vehicle for Adrineh to express herself and be heard. Her first film `Bavakan' is about sex-selection abortion in Armenia where in 2012 the birth of boys outnumbered girls 114-116 to 100, while the natural rate is 105 to 100, because couples chose to have boys. Armenia has one of the highest rates of sex-selective abortion in the world.

`Bavakan' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Short Corner in 2012, then Golden Apricot, then across Europe and CIS, recently winning best film at `One Shot' Short Film Festival in Yerevan 2015. The film was also screened at locations throughout Armenia and the Caucasus.

There were many obstacles in making this film because it was such a delicate topic that needed to be delivered very carefully. `We are still very matriarchal, that's the hypocrisy in Armenian culture. We are matriarchal, but we mask ourselves with hyper-patriarchy, which is something unclear, yet I feel it,' notes Adrineh.

`Bavakan' is also part of an educational outreach campaign for her nonprofit organization in Goris, in southern Armenia, called Sose's Women. The founder is her friend Liana Sahakyan, from Datev. This organization focuses on running social media and educational outreach campaigns about essential subjects like health and the environment. Because women now make up a majority of most communities, they need to be empowered; especially in Syunik, where the men are migrating to Russia, where job opportunities exist. Adrineh's filmmaking is part of the process of education and information. It is advocacy at its best.

Back to Gürün

I knew that Adrineh is a Persian Armenian from the way her last name is spelled in English. I wondered how it was that she was from Gürün. It turns out that she is of diverse heritage: her maternal grandfather is from Gürün, and survived the Genocide, went to Beirut and then on to Iran to work, where he married her grandmother. Her dad's side has 500 years of history in Isfahan.

After a successful crowd funding campaign and hundreds of supporters, the documentary film `Back to Gürün' is finally being released. Going back to Gürün is not only a journey to explore the land and the roots. It also hints at Armenian and Turkish readiness to create a dialogue between the two nations. That dialogue will not be possible without the `freedom of speech and belief.' Moreover, it tells the world about the efforts done by the Turkish government to change history. It is an emotional journey, opens some wounds and awakens your mind to realize that the Genocide is still going on, erasing and covering the truth about what happened to the `Armenian Millet.'

In Gürün, Adrineh meets with `Hidden Armenians'. The old lady, `Nourhan's sister' whose grandmother was Armenian, remains silent in the movie, but her silence tells a lot, a silenced scream. A mixture of sadness, bitterness and hope is reflected through her eyes. Although there is a slight smile on her face, that smile is choking her. That lady is helpless, and neglected, waiting for salvation. She stuck into my mind and heart as she represents our lands. Our `Western Armenia' waiting in silence, sadness, and bitterness because the helping hand is not there yet. Did Adrineh's visit help? Did that hope vanish? Is it too late?

Adrineh's major concern, and it shows in her works, is the fact that Armenian art was victimized as a result of the Genocide. People, who were destined to write literature, compose music, produce operas, dramas, films, and draw paintings, even teachers who would pass on information, were lost. `It is painful that we have not only experienced the loss of people, but the loss of a great amount of art, and the potential for building new art on top of what we had before,' says Adrineh.

Adrineh appeals to prioritize the arts. Collectively, she sees a huge problem in terms of values: priorities and values. Supporting the arts in Armenia should be done immediately to save the cultural foundations in the republic and the diaspora. This is an inevitable necessity for a civilized and a sophisticated society. `We now have so much potential. However, the arts need patrons. We need to value the arts in order to succeed at it, too.'

For many of us, Armenia is still an undiscovered country where young souls and professionals must continue to explore and invest. She understood the potential of our new country as a most incredible place, especially for Armenians who visit to Armenia and see something completely different than what they were taught at home. It's a living history in its own way. For Adrineh, the biggest problem in the country is the fact that every month, roughly, at least 10,000 people leave this country as migrant workers. Doing the math, in 40 years this country will be without Armenians and it's a very scary thought.

I had the honor and the privilege to hear and learn from Adrineh's personal experience. Our nation will thrive with healthy minds. I hope that my own children and our community's young generations will take her as a role model and edify our society`s concerns with similar solutions and projects.