Zareh Arevshatian: UCLA Media Coordinator (Winter 08)

Lara Kuyumjian
Lara88.Bruin@ucla.edu

"It was the day Elvis Presley died."

On August 16, 1977, Zareh Arevshatian realized his passion of movies for the first time ever.

"It was a rainy day. I was at home [in England], watching TV," Arevshatian remembers. They were showing a film that Arevshatian didn’t fully understand due to the fact that he was not yet fluent in English. "The movie was very captivating and I figured that I would love to be involved in the production of a film like that."

Later on, Arevshatian would learn that the film that fascinated him was Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

Arevshatian, now the Media coordinator at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, had a long way to go until his dreams came close to being realized.
Born in beautiful Tehran, Iran on September 28, 1962, Arevshatian grew up in a very traditional Armenian family.

His parents enrolled him in an Armenian school and he was also a member of the Homenetmen Armenian organization of Iran.

Similar to many Iranian-Armenians, Arevshatian’s family was forced to go through many hardships before they were able to reach the shores of America. Arevshatian discloses that he lived in Germany prior to settling in United States.

Arevshatian along with his family officially immigrated to America in 1981. Once here, he decided to continue his education; he began to attend California State University, Northridge.
"It was the summer of 1981 and one of the classes that were being offered at CSUN was the History of Cinema," Arevshatian said. "It was my first college class. And I got bitten by the bug."

Arevshatian received his Bachelor of Arts in film production from CSUN. After graduation, he recalls, that during his undergraduate studies, something had always bothered him. He had always been frustrated that there was absolutely no mention of Armenian cinema in books covering the history of world cinema.

In 1988, while he was watching Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ at the theaters, he was overwhelmed with excitement when he heard the sound of the Armenian instrument, the duduk.

"Peter Gabriel composed the score of Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, and hearing the sound of the duduk, an Armenian instrument in a major Hollywood movie was so huge for me!" Arevshatian said, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "That occurrence just somewhat compelled me to write my thesis on the history of Armenian cinema.

With that, he went on to earn his Master of Arts in Film Studies at CSUN.

Upon entering Arevshatian’s office at UCLA, one is able to see his immense passion for movies as his office has thousands of DVDs! While looking through the shelves stacked with DVDs, you cannot help but notice the DVDs with Armenian writings on them.

Arevshatian has many Armenian movies in his office. At his time working at UCLA, he has done his best to convince the faculty to show their students Armenian films as well. He has had little, yet evident success.

One can also find volumes of information about Armenian cinema and film. He is currently working on a research paper about the Armenian director, Sergei Paradjanov.

The respected Paradjanov is one of Arevshatian’s favorite directors. In fact, Paradjanov is responsible for the movie that made Arevshatian fall in love with Armenian film, the Color of the Pomegranate.

Arevshatian is also a big fan of Armenian directors Henrik Malyan and Rouben Gevorkyantz. He finds these men to be vital to the history of Armenian film in general.

Arevshatian’s accomplishments thus far are countless; however, his devotion to Armenian film foreshadows greater triumphs in his life and in the life of the Armenian cinema.