Young Armenian director features history of Chinese-Armenian relations

A documentary film by the 26-year-old Armenian director, Ruben Gini, offers a new perspective of China's ties with western civilizations.

Based exclusively on scientific research, the latest archaeological findings and archival data, Armenia – The Great Chinese Journey is a new film that promises to present previously unknown historical artefacts, Radio86.com reported.

“It is not a story of one nation. My purpose is to make the documentary equally interesting for a broad audience, from different countries, and also for different ages, from respected scholars to schoolboys,” Gini told website .

“However, in our new documentary Armenia – the Great Chinese Journey we will try to find the answers by relying on the latest archaeological data, international publications and interviews with Western and Asian experts. This is what makes it unique,” he said.

The documentary uses three periods to explore the history of Chinese-Armenian relations, beginning with antiquity and the Middle Ages, then the 20th century and finally the modern age and the Shanghai 2010 Expo.

Viewers will head on an exciting and educating journey back in time to see major historical events with their own eyes and make new discoveries.

A couple of decades ago, accessing Chinese archive materials would have been an impossible mission. However, today, all the doors are open to this young film director.

Working on the documentary script, he felt like a detective investigating the mysteries of the past: “I think that now is a convenient time to work with archives in China because, after 100 years of communism, this country is open again. Now a Westerner can get access to these unstudied historical records and resources.”

“The script is mostly ready but we are constantly receiving new data and making final changes. For the shooting, we are planning to visit five countries and 14 cities, such as Shanghai, Harbin, Lhasa (Tibet), Samarkand, Singapore, Macao and Hong Kong,” said the director.

Ruben Gini was born in Yerevan, Armenia, and studied film directing at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK). He moved to China in 2004 to work as a creative director in an advertisement company. Now at age 26, he communicates in four languages:

“What intrigued me most was the fact that Chinese history is so different and closely intertwined with legend. Sometimes it's not easy to define truth from the legend,” Gini said.

Contemporary archaeological research shows that China and Armenia were in contact in the second century BC. To prove this, the documentary will feature convincing artefacts, such as ancient Armenian coins found in China and an image of the Chinese dragon on Armenian engravings.

Armenia is important in this respect due to its geographical location on the crossroads of cultures and trading routes. Gini says, that Chinese-Armenian relations have not been studied very extensively.

Armenian costume served as a sort of pass to the Eastern trade routes: “Europeans disguised themselves in Armenian clothes to see the wonders of China,” said Gini.

“It's important to understand that the first contacts with the East were the first steps towards globalization, a process which began in ancient times and is continuing to the present day and to the future... So the film intends to show these connections,” concluded Ruben Gini.

The film will be released during 2012.