By Olivia Mouradian
When film director and actor Michael Goorjian first visited Armenia in 2006, he knew he wanted to make a film about Armenia. He would not return to Armenia until 2018, this time to scout locations to do exactly that. Four years later, his film, Amerikatsi, would be released. This film follows the story of Charlie Bakhchinyan, an Armenian-American who decides to repatriate to Soviet Armenia in the 1940s and is promptly imprisoned. In telling this story, Goorjian aimed to paint Armenian life at this time not as entirely good or bad but rather to show the “absurdity” of the Soviet government’s bureaucracy with nuance.
Shooting this film in Armenia was not a question for Goorjian. “The idea of actually shooting in Armenia versus just an Armenian story was most appealing to me,” says Goorjian.
The crew shot several scenes in Gyumri, where much of the historical architectural character has been preserved. While Goorjian did not want to specifically locate the film in any one city in Armenia, he still included notable landmarks from Gyumri in the film. CivilNet retraced several shots from the 2022 film to their original filming locations in the city.
Early in the film, there is a scene showing a breadline on Hovhannes Tumanyan Street. Goorjian tells CivilNet that this was the last scene they filmed before stopping due to COVID-19.
This breadline is then shown from a different angle, with the distinctive silhouette of Gyumri’s Surp Amenaprkich Church (or Holy Saviour’s Church) standing in the background. The domes of this church are also seen later in the film from Charlie’s prison cell.
Shortly after, Sona, a local woman, and Charlie talk around the corner on a side street. The building they are standing in front of was a school originally built for girls in 1912, and is now an all-gender school.
Following these opening scenes, much of the film is shot in the prison Charlie is sent to, the specific location of which is not disclosed. The apartment near the prison that Charlie observes throughout the film also does not have a traceable location.
Toward the last quarter of the film, Sona and her husband Dmitry’s car is shown on Jivani Street arriving at the prison Charlie was in. While the film’s situation in place and time is consistent to the audience, the pandemic necessitated some gaps in filming. This shot of the street was filmed in the winter and the subsequent scene with Sona, Dmitry, and their son sitting in the car was filmed in the spring. They were in Moscow and, due to travel restrictions, could not return to Armenia until the spring.
The audience returns to Jivani Street toward the end of the film, immediately following Charlie’s release from prison. With the statues of Sheram and Jivani visible in the background, this scene is only a few hundred meters south of the scene of Sona and Dmitry arriving at the prison.
In 2023, Goorjian’s Amerikatsi became the first submission from Armenia to be shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. While a film does not need to be shot in the country that is submitting it to qualify for the Best International Feature Film category, Goorjian says that “95% of the production was all done locally.” In the years following Amerikatsi, he has been working on a project he hopes to shoot in Armenia but is not necessarily connected to Armenian themes. He tells CivilNet he would like to show other people that Armenia can be a filming location for works that are not necessarily connected to the country itself. As Goorjian works to bring attention to Armenia as a viable filming location for other filmmakers, Amerikatsi serves as one example of the cinematic possibilities of shooting in Armenia.
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