Your Custom Text Here
Out here is Tarani's debut single — an Armenglish love letter to indigenous lands
director • producer • editor: Tara Baghdassarian
DP • drone: Hagop Ghazarian
assistant producer: Dea Hovhannisyan
PA: Ara Baghdassarian
color: Sebastian Johnson-Deal
featuring Nare Poghosyan
vocals • songwriter: Tara Baghdassarian
recording artist: Mesrop Sarkisyan
mixing • keys: Shamik Ganguly
mastering: Kern Haug
violin • guitar accents: Mischa Babak rad
Three years ago, I wrote this song on the mountaintop of Goris. Two years ago, I recorded the vocals in Yerevan. One year ago, we filmed in Syunik — home of some of the most magical places on earth. Today, I feel blessed to share it with the world. All done in Armenia.
Within weeks of shooting this video last September, we lost Artsakh and over 100,000 Armenian refugees were forced to leave their indigenous lands. The rest of Armenia, particularly Syunik province, continues to face existential threat. Out Here is my love letter to these lands.
Altar (6 min, 2024)
A traditional Vietnamese altar transports a grieving woman to the spiritual world on their friend’s one year death anniversary.
Directed and produced by Tara Baghdassarian
Written by Sal Tran and Tara Baghdassarian
Starring Chiaowei Yu and Maroon Hwang
DP Sal Tran
1st Assistant Camera Sean Sullivan
2nd Assistant Camera Kali Wong
Gaffer Mark Alegre
Sound Nitish Saini
Production Assistants Prashant Adhikari and Kali Wong
Audio Engineer Tara Baghdassarian
Colorist Sal Tran
Edited by Sal Tran and Tara Baghdassarian
Special thanks to Kelly Whalen
My 96 year old grandma blindly navigates life at home.
The Lines of Your Face (2023) is a short film weaving together fragments of memory, loss, and land. Lines of thought and territory collide in a visual poem of handheld footage from Armenia and the 2020 Artsakh War. On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani military forces launched a full scale war in the autonomous region of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) with the support of Turkey and Israel. Approximately 90,000 Armenians in Artsakh lost their homes that fall.
Screenings:
Jan 2023 - SF Public Library
Jan 2023 - World Affairs in San Francisco
Jan 2023 - Shelter She Loves Collective Exhibition in Glendale, CA
Nov 2023 - Mother Armenia Fundraiser in Oakland, CA
Nov 2023 - Beauty Supply Arts in Oakland, CA
Jan 2024 - Greatest Film Club in Los Angeles, CA
When the sun (arev) and moon (lusin) kiss… When the seven chakras are aligned and activated… When Anoush Arakelyan and Tara Baghdassarian play with shadows…
The collaborative duo, ArevLusin, participated in the annual shadow puppetry festival at Silk Road Hotel in Yerevan, Armenia on November 12. Drawing inspiration from the Surya Kriya yoga practice, Gurdjieff, and other artists, ArevLusin animated, sang, and created handmade puppets abstracting an individual’s journey to enlightenment.
projection & sound - Anoush / puppets & vocals - Tara
Winds,
ebbs and flows of history
passing through fibers
in which we live;
Washed by weathered hands,
caressed by mothers’ love,
gripped by calloused labor.
A gentle reminder
along our path
that the past is present,
living amidst us
among every bend, drop and peak.
Like water,
seeping through soil
down mountains and in the walls
that we have surrounded ourselves with.
It flows onward
in waves,
illuminated only by the light
when struck by a memory.
Shot and edited in 2020. This is Hasmik Bagdasaryan. She is 65 years old and originally from Shushi, Artsakh. She now lives in Tegh village, Armenia. Hasmik is an important volunteer in the Tegh village community, doing everything she can for the Armenian people and homeland.
Support her and other Artsakh refugees by visiting allforarmenia.org/donate
Moonlit lakeside experiments
The short stop motion film, Flight of The Pelican, explores the life of a pelican from the time it is born until its death. The pelican traverses across diverse environments, many of which has been tainted and disparaged by humanity and consumerism.
Video Still
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/127764699
Mannequin Nation (2015) is a mockumentary which confronts beauty standards. The film satirizes unrealistic body standards, and destructive representations of men and women with mannequins. The mockumentary Mannequin Nation follows mannequins who are protesting and voicing their outrage and disapproval about how they are used in the industry. They are demanding a change!
Buddham saranam gacchami...
Dhamam saranam gacchami...
Buddham saranam gacchami...
Dhamam saranam gacchami...
Sangham saranam gacchami...
Dutiyampi buddham saranam gacchami.
Dutiyampi dhamam saranam gacchami...
Dutiyampi sangham…
Refuge, my first attempt ever at video art, was inspired by the Hindi mantra above. During a meditation visit to a Buddhist temple, I experienced a transformative state which led me to my deep, inner place of Refuge. What I didn’t know at the time was that the prayer being chanted by the monk and the people around me was in fact called Refuge - the exact word I envisioned during my meditation.
