Director Varsy Buchmann on “They Say We Have to Leave”

In a heartfelt interview on Armenian News Radio FM 106.5’s “Fresh Brain,” director, screenwriter and producer Varsy Buchmann shared the deeply personal and urgent motivations behind her new documentary installation, “They Say We Have to Leave.” The project captures the harrowing experiences of 120 women forcibly displaced from Artsakh in 2023.

Host Monika Melqumyan opened the conversation by asking when and why the idea for the project was born. Buchmann pinpointed the exact moment: the sixth day of the 2023 Artsakh’s crisis. “The project began on September 25, 2023,” she stated. “I was following the events from the very first day, but on the 25th, there was the explosion.” She was referring to the devastating fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert, an event that became a personal catalyst. “After seeing those images,” she continued, “it was just… awful. I immediately called [producer] Andreas Weber and said we have to do a project about this.”

The conversation then turned to the project’s fundamental purpose. “What was the goal? What did you put at the foundation?” Melqumyan asked.

Buchmann outlined a two-fold mission. The first was deeply empathetic: “First of all, I wanted to understand for myself and to convey to others what these people are feeling, having gone through all of this… they are leaving their homeland, their homes, their entire lives.” The second purpose was to combat global indifference and the rapid fading of the tragedy from international headlines. Drawing from her experience living in Switzerland, she noted, “These types of conflicts… get very little space in the Swiss media. It’s very difficult to publicize anything about it… I wanted to create something so we can talk about it, so it is not forgotten and lost like all the other stories.”

Melqumyan noted that the project focuses specifically on women and asked if this was because they were left to carry the burden after so many men were lost. Buchmann clarified that while everyone suffered, the choice was intentional. “A woman, in her emotional aspect, is a little freer… and she is ready to share those emotions,” she explained. By interviewing women, she was able to access the stories of the entire community, as they spoke of their lost fathers, brothers, and husbands.

When asked about the emotional toll of conducting over 100 hours of interviews, Buchmann became visibly moved. For her, the most powerful and defining part of the process was the unwavering spirit of the women themselves. Despite the immense trauma and pain they recounted, she discovered an incredible, unifying strength. “Their power, and the faith that they will go back,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. “Everyone said it. Whatever happens, we are going back.”

This sentiment is the core of the installation. It is not a traditional film with a beginning and end, but a continuous loop in a space with no chairs, forcing the viewer to stand with the stories. “You can come in at any moment and leave at any moment,” Buchmann described.

In her closing thoughts, Buchmann rejected the idea that she learned a “lesson,” but rather that a core belief was powerfully reinforced: “Without our memories, we are nothing,” she declared. “We lose our identity when we forget who we are and where we come from… This project is another attempt, or fight, against forgetting.”

The installation will have a limited viewing at Latitude Art Space in Yerevan on September 26, 2024. It will then travel to Basel, Switzerland, on October 31, beginning its mission to embed the story of Artsakh into the world’s collective memory.