{"id":320863,"date":"2025-10-21T09:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320863\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T09:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T09:55:13","slug":"there-was-there-was-not-helmer-emily-mkrtichian-on-artsakh-war-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320863\/","title":{"rendered":"‘There Was, There Was Not’ Helmer Emily Mkrtichian On Artsakh War Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFilmmaker Emily Mkrtichian<\/a> didn\u2019t know she would be making a war documentary<\/a> when she embarked on her near-decade-in-the-making feature There Was, There Was Not. What began as a project aiming to explore the lives of four disparate women in post-conflict Artsakh changed almost overnight as the long-beleaguered breakaway state, sandwiched between Azerbaijan and Armenia, became the site of ethnic cleansing of its majority indigenous Armenian population in the wake of a major escalation in a dormant conflict.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEverything was totally confusing and scary,\u201d the documentarian tells Deadline in an interview. \u201cAnd at that moment, I understood that the film that we were making was absolutely going to change, but it took several years to understand what that meant, and so I stayed through the whole 45 days of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tToward the latter half of 2020, as international borders slowly reopened, Mkrtichian was preparing to wrap up filming on the doc. The day before she was set to fly back to the U.S., the war broke out after an Azerbaijani offensive. \u201cIt was absolutely a coincidence and a shock to be there with a camera when that was happening,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere Was, There Was Not \u2014 which had its world premiere at the all-documentary fest True\/False<\/a> last year and will continue screening in certain U.S. cities through November<\/a> following an Oct. 10 release \u2014 takes its name from the traditional introductory phrase in Armenian folk tales, the corollary to the English variant \u201cOnce upon a time.\u201d With establishing shots of the majestic Armenian highlands, the documentary makes a concerted effort to trace the deep-rooted mythos of this ancestral land before delving into its subjects.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the years that followed, it was really hard as an artist, as a filmmaker, to feel responsible for creating a narrative or making some sort of meaning out of that experience,\u201d Mkrtichian recalls of filming. \u201cAnd for me, that experience was fundamentally witnessing Siranush, Sose, Gayane, Sveta in that unbelievable moment of their lives \u2026 It took me a really long time to try to figure out what it is we\u2019re doing when we tell stories, and how that can still have power, even if it feels like all of our power has been taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe doc was born partially out of a short film Mkrtichian had previously released in 2018, Motherland, about women in the capital city of Stepanakert who served with the HALO Trust<\/a>, an NGO that works on clearing landmines and explosives in conflict areas. Through that project, and her split time between Armenia, Artsakh, and the U.S., she came to know Siranush Sargsyan, an educator-turned-freelance war correspondent<\/a>; Gayane Hambardzumyan, a feminist organizer<\/a>; Sose Balasanyan, a rising judo star and world champion; and Sveta Harutunyan, a deminer with HALO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSiranush Sargsyan in \u2018There Was, There Was Not\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe film is not meant to garner sympathy and for others to watch it and to think of these women as victims,\u201d Mkrtichian maintains, \u201cbecause I have learned so much from these four women about survival, resistance, resilience. I think, if anything, the film is trying to tell us that these women have something to teach us. They\u2019re not there for us to feel bad for; we can be enraged about what happened, and we can understand that it was a huge injustice, but it is not meant to flatten them as humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that end, Mkrtichian, as a diaspora Armenian, was cognizant of the \u201cdifferent privilege\u201d she brought to the material, choosing to ground the film in reality and lean away from sensationalism. As such, the director made \u201cvery intentional\u201d choices to include moments where she crosses the boundary between filmmaker and subject, appearing on screen in intimate scenes to share an embrace or offer some words.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was important to allow something of the relationship of myself to these women, it was important for the viewer to understand that the person behind the camera really cared about them,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, Mkrtichian was keen to eschew conventions of the war documentary subgenre, making the deliberate decision to depict the \u201crupture\u201d that occurs at the outset of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and breaking with the \u201cv\u00e9rit\u00e9\u201d of the film to conduct sit-down interviews.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we were in the edit, there was a lot of talk around \u2014 the traditional version of this film would have started with bombs, so that people knew that there was a conflict coming and that they could stay engaged and interested,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it was a very intentional choice to spend the first 40 minutes of the film in Artsakh, in a place that, of course, isn\u2019t perfect, because all these women were struggling for something different, but also was so beautiful in its own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe women\u2019s distinct and all-encompassing tie to their homeland \u2014 despite its conservatism and embedded misogyny, as Sargsyan points out \u2014 is something Mkrtichian admits she was envious of, having \u201cfelt disconnected from the place that I grew up in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTheir love of Artsakh was really palpable \u2026 I was, like, jealous of that,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was something there that really captivated me, that knowledge of your connection to a place, and being able to still be on it despite everything around being kind of tenuous, and somehow that almost made you love it more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tOfficial poster for \u2018There Was, There Was Not\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tIn keeping with the rich Armenian tradition of generational storytelling \u2014 Mkrtichian says, \u201cI was raised on stories of genocide. I was raised on stories of, \u2018Be careful, be cautious.\u2019 I was raised on stories of, \u2018Land is important, family is important.\u2019\u201d \u2014 the filmmaker wanted to explore, through the prism of warfare, the meaning-making of oral histories.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cExperiencing the war was almost, to me, like experiencing these things that I had heard through story, and it made me think about, \u2018What is the value of these stories? Why were they passed on to me? And why are they so important in my childhood?\u2019 And part of it is because they were passing on information, and they were also keeping something alive that had been lost to my ancestors,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe war officially concluded Nov. 10, 2020, when Russia brokered a ceasefire agreement in favor of Azerbaijan, whose usage of banned Israeli-made cluster bombs <\/a>and other evolved munitions led to the death of over 5,000. Despite a peacekeeping force, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military offensive on the sovereign territory in September 2023, which led to the displacement of nearly the entire Artsakh population, some 120,000, to Armenia. Shortly thereafter, in January 2024, the disputed region was officially dissolved and the republic ceased to exist. A peace deal<\/a> is currently in effect between the two nations.<\/p>\n

\n\tMkrtichian hopes her film exists in concert with other projects that offer \u201cresistance to erasure\u201d via the \u201cwork of memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt feels difficult to live in the world and look around at how many people are being forcibly displaced from their lands,\u201d she says. \u201cI want [the film] to keep [this place] alive. And I want it to really be in solidarity with all the other struggles of the other peoples who are fighting to stay on their land, so we understand: Why is that important, and what is the real risk? There\u2019s a real risk of losing those places forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Sveta Harutunyan, Sose Balasanyan, Gayane Hambardzumyan and Siranush Sargsyan in \u2018There Was, There Was Not\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Sargsyan \u2014 who is currently enrolled in the human rights advocacy program<\/a> at the Nova School of Business & Economics in Carcavelos, Portugal \u2014 shedding light on the understudied conflict is a \u201cway of life \u2026 I just can\u2019t not do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was not heard. I was not seen. And I think one of the biggest, [most] important part[s] of this movie is that it allows us to be seen,\u201d she explains in an interview, adding that the movie stands against those trying to \u201cdestroy your past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf combatting historical deletion, she says, \u201cYou feel insecure about your past, what you experienced there. And sometimes you also even start to ask, like, \u2018Maybe that was not real.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tParticularly \u201ctraumatic,\u201d Sargsyan says, is the insinuation from other Armenians \u2014 whether government officials or civilians \u2014 that the Artsakhi populace \u201cdidn\u2019t fight\u201d back hard enough to protect its territory.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are unusual refugees, like we are refugees in our country, in our homeland,\u201d she says of relocating to Armenia, noting \u201cour love was unconditional to Artsakh\u201d and \u201cwe did our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow I live in one of the [most] beautiful cities in the world [in Portugal], but it\u2019s like a movie: You are walking and you know, like, it\u2019s not your life. It will never be your life,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the \u201cvery painful\u201d nature of the loss, Sargsyan says Artsakhis now consider Armenia their adoptive homeland, where the work of protecting their identity and history will continue.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat we had, we have to keep it, especially when we don\u2019t have any kind of access to Artsakh,\u201d she states. \u201cEvery scene, every shop, even every dog \u2014 I don\u2019t know \u2014 everything you see in [this] movie, it\u2019s important. For me, it\u2019s like a museum, because we will never be that way again. We all changed. We are not the same people, and we will never be in that environment.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Emily Mkrtichian didn\u2019t know she would be making a war documentary when she embarked on her near-decade-in-the-making…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":320864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3192,160679,171,53,160680,160681,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-320863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-documentary","9":"tag-emily-mkrtichian","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-there-was-there-was-not","13":"tag-true-false","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115411558839124439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}