Carla Garapedian facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carla Garapedian
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| Քարլա Կարապետեան | |
Portrait of Garapedian
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| Born | 27 February 1961 Los Angeles, California, U.S
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| Nationality | American British |
| Occupation | filmmaker and former anchor for BBC World News |
Carla Garapedian (Armenian: Քարլա Կարապետեան; born on February 27, 1961) is a talented filmmaker, director, writer, and broadcaster. She is known for directing powerful documentaries about important global issues. She also used to be a news anchor for BBC World News.
After working at BBC World, Carla Garapedian directed several films. These included Dying for the President about Chechnya, Lifting the Veil about women in Afghanistan, and Iran Undercover about Iran. Her film My Friend the Mercenary explored a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. Her most famous film, Screamers, was released in movie theaters in 2006 and 2007. This film was even chosen by Newsweek as one of the best non-fiction films of its time. Critics praised Screamers, calling it "powerful" and "brilliant."
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Early Career in Media
Carla Garapedian studied international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She earned both her first degree and her Ph.D. there. After her studies, she started working in media in Britain.
From 1987 to 1990, she was a producer, director, and reporter for a show called The World This Week. Her first documentary, Cooking the Books (1989), looked into how the government might have changed official numbers.
Later, from 1991 to 1992, she became a correspondent for NBC London Live. She also started working for the BBC, making documentaries for their Assignment series. These films covered important topics like nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe and changes in South African broadcasting. She also reported for NBC Weekend Nightly News and NBC Today News.
Reporting for BBC World
Carla Garapedian was the first American to be a news anchor for BBC World News. From 1996 to 1998, she presented news and analysis for their main programs. She even wrote a screenplay called Talkback about the night Princess Diana died, based on her experiences.
Making Documentaries with Channel 4
With new, smaller digital cameras, Carla Garapedian could make documentaries in places that were usually too dangerous or hard for journalists to reach. She worked with Hardcash production company to create films for Channel 4's investigative series, Dispatches.
Her films often used hidden cameras to show what was really happening. These documentaries included Dying for the President (about Chechnya), Children of the Secret State (about North Korea), Lifting the Veil (about Afghanistan), Iran Undercover (about Iran), and My Friend the Mercenary (about South Africa and Equatorial Guinea). She bravely documented truth in dangerous places.
Lifting the Veil
Lifting the Veil is a 50-minute documentary funded by Channel Four in the UK. For this film, Carla Garapedian traveled to Afghanistan. She investigated the lives of women there, especially focusing on a case where a mother was accused of a crime. Garapedian searched for the woman's children, who shared their thoughts. The film showed the challenges women faced in Afghanistan. Lifting the Veil was first shown on British television in 2002 and later on the U.S. Sundance Channel.
The Film Screamers
Screamers is a powerful documentary film released in December 2006. This film features the band System of a Down, whose members are of Armenian descent. The movie explores the terrible events of genocide throughout history. It focuses on the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923, where many Armenians were killed.
The film also mentions other genocides, like the Jewish Holocaust, the Bosnian Genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the genocide in the Darfur region. Screamers asks why these terrible events keep happening. It includes insights from Professor Samantha Power, an expert on genocide.
The film shows clips of System of a Down on tour, mixed with scenes from different genocides. Screamers won an award at the AFI Film festival in November 2006. After the film was released, a person who contributed to it, Hrant Dink, was sadly murdered in Turkey.
Screamers has been translated into 13 languages. It has been shown in important places like the U.S. Congress and the United Nations. In 2007, when Screamers was shown in the British Parliament, a leader named John Bercow said the film was a strong reminder that genocide is still a problem today. He encouraged young people to help stop such terrible acts. In 2015, Screamers was even shown in Turkey for the first time, at a film festival that features banned films.
Awards and Recognition
Carla Garapedian has received many awards for her impactful documentaries. Her first documentary, "Cooking the Books," was nominated for a Royal Television Society award. She has also received the Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award and the Clara Barton Medal.
Her film Germany and the Secret Genocide, which she co-wrote, won a Gold Camera award in 2004. Screamers won the American Film Institute Audience Award for Best Documentary in 2006. It also won awards at the Montreal Human Rights festival and the Golden Apricot festival in 2007.
In 2009, she received the "Community Hero award" for Screamers. This award recognized the film's efforts to raise awareness about the Armenian genocide, especially through the band System of a Down.
After Screamers, Carla Garapedian began speaking to university students about preventing genocide and promoting human rights. She has been a keynote speaker at important events, like the official commemoration of the Armenian genocide in Massachusetts. She is also recognized by "100 Lives," an initiative that thanks people who do good in the world.
Armenian Film Foundation
Carla Garapedian's father, Leo Garapedian, was a journalism professor and helped start the Armenian Film Foundation. This organization supported filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian, who spent 40 years recording interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors around the world.
Carla Garapedian narrated some of Hagopian's films, like Voices from the Lake. She also helped write his film, Germany and the Secret Genocide. After Hagopian passed away, Carla became the leader of the Armenian Film Foundation's project to digitize about 400 interviews of Armenian genocide survivors. These interviews were added to the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive. This archive, started by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, collects testimonies from Holocaust survivors and now includes other genocides, like the Armenian Genocide. Carla continues to work with the Armenian Film Foundation, which is a key place for visual records of Armenian history and culture.
Pomegranate Foundation
In 2009, Carla Garapedian founded the Pomegranate Foundation. This organization aims to raise awareness about genocide and intolerance through art. In 2015, a special collection of interviews from Rwanda genocide survivors was added to the foundation's collection.
See also
- Screamers (documentary)
- Forbidden Iran
