Documentary Takes Second Look at Artsakh Conflict
Glendale Ews-Press
Armenian American journalist Vic Gerami’s journey filming his recently rereleased documentary titled “ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues,” began in early 2021, when he traveled to Armenia to interview eyewitnesses, veterans, refugees, government officials and fellow journalists about the region of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh.
Originally titled “Motherland,” the documentary, which chronicles the 2020-23 Nagorno-Karabakh war, was initially released in 2022 when a fraction of Artsakh’s Armenian population still remained in the region, Gerami said.
After Azerbaijani forces claimed full occupation of Artsakh in September 2023, Gerami said he felt compelled to add the second half of the conflict’s story to his documentary.
Artsakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was reportedly home to an almost exclusively Armenian population prior to the second Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
When Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s assistance, launched a military offensive on the Armenian people of Artsakh in September 2020, Gerami said he and fellow Armenian journalists and activists scrambled to bring attention amid a “media blackout” of coverage on the “invasion.”
“The annihilation of Armenian life in Artsakh was enabled by the inaction and indifference of those who might have prevented it,” Gerami said in a news release.
That indifference, Gerami said, is the result of a lack of awareness fueled by Azerbaijan’s political and media influence and Armenians’ perceived lack of westerness and whiteness.
“You can’t blame a lot of people for not knowing anything about it. They don’t know because it’s not covered, it’s not sexy … it’s just the way the world works. Things become hot and then they’re not,” Gerami told the News-Press.
Gerami and crew spent a year and half filming, and ultimately collected 43 hours of footage for the investigative documentary, which he said was designed to be educational for those who may not know about Artsakh’s history.
During his filming, Gerami said he spoke to Armenian veterans from the war who witnessed their friends being killed next to them by drone attacks from Azerbaijani forces and others walking around with missing limbs.
One of Gerami’s interviewees, veteran Gevorg Karapetyan, saw his younger brother get killed during an explosion that left himself paralyzed.
While collecting footage for the documentary, Gerami said he came across several beheading videos of Armenians in Artsakh during the war.
“Armenians, not just Artsakh Armenians, but just Armenians in general, are very demoralized and devastated. And it’s all the wounds from the Armenian genocide that were not healed yet … they’re just even worse now,” he said.
“ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues,” features interviews with members of Congress, including Sen. Adam Schiff, Sen. Bob Menendez, U.S. Reps Frank Pallone Jr., Jackie Speier, Katie Porter, Brad Sherman and Barbara Lee and Baroness Caroline Anne Cox.
For the revised version of the documentary, Gerami interviewed an additional elected official, Laguna Niguel Councilmember Stephanie Seraydarian Oddo, and updated the film to reflect the “bloody chapters in the not-so-distant history” of Artsakh.
Gerami asserts that two years into the invasion, in December 2022, after killing over 5,000 Armenians and having occupied 90% of Artsakh, Azerbaijan blockaded the region’s Lachin corridor and later drained its Sarsang Reservoir in an attempt to drive Armenians out.
Those bloody chapters, Gerami contends, ended in September 2023 when Azerbaijan, led by President Ilham Aliyev, waged a 24-hour “unprovoked military offensive,” resulting in the displacement of 120,000 Armenians from Artsakh and the death of 200 more.
Gerami argued that for nearly three decades, Azerbaijan has spent “unlimited funds” from its oil and gas industry, painting a false narrative to the globe about Artsakh.
“It took us 106 years to get the Armenian Genocide recognized and the perpetrator is … still denying it. There’s just so much politicking around it,” Gerami said.
During the documentary’s initial release, Gerami said it received positive feedback from Armenians and non-Armenians alike.
In August 2022, Rep. Laura Friedman, former state Sen. Anthony Portantino and Glendale City Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian, who was then the mayor, sponsored a screening at the Glendale Laemmle Theater. Gerami also screened “Motherland,” which premiered in Hollywood, at Glendale Community College and in Armenia and Toronto.
Gerami premiered “ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues,” in Washington, D.C., on July 16. He would like to show it again in Glendale, but does not currently have plans to do so.
Gerami is the founder of the Truth and Accountability League, a nonprofit advocacy organization,
“So many Armenians all over Glendale [and] L.A., … are descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. We’re all pretty much affected by this in some way or another. Some … [are] new arrivals, who are from Artsakh; they escaped Artsakh, and then they moved to the U.S. Some of these people witnessed the first Artsakh war of 1990 to ’94. It’s sort of a part of our existence as Armenians … this just ongoing trauma,” Gerami said.
