Brazilian photographer Tati Boudakian is raising funds for a short film on Armenian migration in Brazil. The film, which mixes documentary and fiction formats, will tell the story of young Anushik – who traveled to Brazil and decided to stay. She is now an Armenian teacher in São Paulo, where there is a large community in that country. The film should be called “Dehatsí – I was another place”. In Armenian, “dehatsí” means something like “native”.
Boudakian’s short film will use Anushik’s trajectory to unravel a series of other stories. For example, that of the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, Armenia says that 1.5 million people were killed, while Turkey, heir to this empire, speaks of it between 300 and 400 000. For those who want to know more about the Armenian Genocide, I published a long article on the subject in 2014. Boudakian is the granddaughter of the survivors of the episode. “My grandparents fled to Brazil when they were children and found spaces to develop here,” he writes on the project page. “I didn’t know them, but I feel like every year I get closer to them.”
Speaking of genocide, historical migration and the more recent arrival of people like Anushik, Boudakian hopes to build a bridge between Armenia and São Paulo. A bridge that speaks of language, identity and culture. “It’s a film about Armenia, São Paulo, migrants, all of us,” writes the photographer on her page.
Boudakian’s goal is to raise R $ 30,000 to finance the project. For each real collected, another will be given to the victims of the recent clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The donation has been made by the Armenian General Union of Charity, an international non-profit organization in Brazil since 1964.