By Hagop Goudsouzian

Entertaining cultural documentaries get sent to the backburner. For the last several years I have challenged that premise and have produced four World Music documentaries filmed in Armenia with a glimpse of people's lives. Luckily my challenge has been successful and all my films have aired on TV. This week they will be released on video-on-demand for wider distribution.

Now I will continue that journey and film the music of Georgia with three documentaries. I will produce two Georgian folk music films as well as one on Armenian folk music of Georgia. With this article I take you on my personal journey of documentary filmmaking that spans a lifetime and leads to my new crowd-funding project for which I seek your involvement. World Music lovers join me.

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It wasn’t as though I did not have a choice, I did, but there was nothing more stimulating for me than making films.

I never thought much about making feature films. My father made documentaries and that was the way it was and now my son continues. To me making films was the most honorable route. Well maybe not the most honorable because I first thought writing poetry was the summit of self-expression. Then I no longer found words to express what I felt because I had found a new way to voice my inner vision: photography, but that, too, was temporary.

The independence of Armenia was also the start of my own independence, but at the time I didn’t know it. I was just doing what I had to do. I knew I had to go to Armenia and explore with a camera and that stayed with me for the next twenty years.

I knew the time had come to go to Armenia. This was my calling, but I was afraid. It was spring 1993. While I was getting ready to go, I was looking for people who had just come back to give me an idea of what it was like on the ground. Finally a friend of a friend of a friend returned and, coincidentally, he was a cameraman. Excited, I called him to get his impressions.

The call lasted almost thirty minutes and when I hung up I was depressed. I was ready to abandon not only my journey but Armenia as well. In my mind I was selling all the equipment I had already purchased. Fruit of my disastrous phone call: I cancelled my trip in my mind.

A little later, during my afternoon nap, as if it was a message from a higher power, my life was playing in my dream. I was filming in the home of a Brazilian painter in Mexico then the film jumped to a scene of a car driving through Central America as I reached Panama. There I was photographing the Kuna Indians on remote islands near Panama. It just went on and on from one country to the other. It was a surreal and hazy movie. I could not make sense of it.

I woke up filled with energy because I knew these were scenes from films I had made and I also knew Armenia could not be a hostile land for me even though it was going through extreme difficulties. They were part of my extended family. After all, I had been welcomed wherever I had travelled in the past and why would the lost son returning home be rejected?

I knew I was on the right path. A few weeks later I landed in Armenia. I immediately felt connected to the people and to the land but, when I heard the music, I felt the mountains and the rivers in every song, I heard old bards and minstrels roaming this ancient land. I no longer had doubts in my mind. I knew what I had to do but it took almost 18 years for the dream to become a film.

I returned to Armenia countless times to make an unprecedented 7 films (See: www.HagopGoudsouzian.com). In 2010, hours after I arrived in Armenia, I visited the Minister of Culture but unfortunately I did not have an appointment. While I was describing why I wanted to see the Minister, it was made clear to me that no one could give me advice without prior arrangement. Serendipitously, one of the secretaries overheard my conversation and invited me to her desk.  Little did I know that she was about to give me a list of the most important people in Armenian Folk Music.

A few days later, I visited Professor Alina Pahlivanian at the Komitas Conservatory and with her was Marqarit Sargsyan. I was telling them of my passion for music and what I was looking for. Suddenly, she interrupted the conversation, picked up the phone and said, “Tovmas, I need two tickets for your concert tomorrow.” and hung up. She looked at me and said, “Tomorrow you are going to the concert of the Sayat-Nova Minstrel Song Ensemble” and went on to give me directions.

She was right! I sat for three hours watching and listening in awe! While Marqarit and I were talking at a nearby café after the concert, Professor Tovmas Poghosyan, the artistic director of the ensemble, came to our table to greet Marqarit.

(See: www.ArmenianMinstrels.com)

My love for world music pre-dates my discovery of Armenian music. For me it was a way to explore new cultures through music. I felt that it was through their music that I was getting to the very essence of a people. My interest and love became deeper as I realized that folk music - passed down through generations - was telling the story of their past through music, songs and dance. I became convinced that folk and spiritual music were the bridge to a culture’s past and the way to feel the beauty of their legacy. Folk Music changed how I saw the world and I felt it was very important to share this with the world the only way I knew how: by making entertaining documentaries that explore the beauty of ancient cultures through music.

(See: www.ArmenianEchoes.com)

Now, I invite you to join me in this new film adventure as we explore the beauty of the exotic Georgian and Armenian cultures through their amazing dances, unique songs and instruments.

I seek your support for my newest project (on the crowd-funding site www.indiegogo.com). I hope you are as moved as I am when you hear and see the music, dances and the songs of the world’s exotic cultures.

To contribute or get involved in my new music documentaries and for more information, visit the indiegogo page.

© 2013 Hagop Goudsouzian