Carla Garapedian
Monday, October 14, 2019Carla Garapedian (Armenian: Քարլա Կարապետեան) (born 27 February 1961) is a filmmaker, director, writer and broadcaster. She directed Children of the Secret State about North Korea and was an anchor for BBC World News.
After leaving BBC World, she directed Dying for the President" about Chechnya, Lifting the Veil, about women in Afghanistan, Iran Undercover (Forbidden Iran for PBS Frontline World) and My Friend the Mercenary about the coup in Equatorial Guinea. Her feature, Screamers, was theatrically released in the U.S. in December 2006 and early 2007, and was on Newsweek's pick of non-fiction films for 2006/7. The Independent called it "powerful" and Larry King for CNN described it as "a brilliant film. Everyone should see it." The New York Times deemed it "invigorating and articulate," while the Los Angeles Times called it "eye-opening." "Carla Garapedian is a screamer, too," said the Washington Post.
She earned her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science before working as a producer, director and foreign correspondent based in Britain. Between 1987 and 1990, she was a producer/director and reporter for over 75 editions of The World This Week (Channel 4, UK). Her first documentary, Cooking the Books (1989, Channel 4 Dispatches), was a controversial investigation of the Thatcher government's alleged manipulation of official statistics. Between 1991 and 1992 she went in front of the camera, to become the London correspondent for NBC London Live, producing twice-weekly live spots for NBC Newschannel and NBC affiliate, KCRA. From 1991, she also worked for the BBC, producing and directed documentaries for the BBC's long-form foreign affairs documentary series, Assignment. Films included Europe's Nuclear Nightmare (1991), an investigation of East Europe's most dangerous nuclear reactors, post-Chernobyl; A Short Break in the Interference (1993), with Donald Woods, examining radical changes in South African broadcasting; and Aliens Go Home (1994) unraveling the immigration backlash in California following the 1994 earthquake. She was CNBC's London anchor and correspondent in 1995-1996, and in the same period reported for NBC Weekend Nightly News and NBC Today News.
Leo Garapedian, her father, was a journalism professor and co-founder of the Armenian Film Foundation. This organization supported the late filmmaker, J. Michael Hagopian, and his 40-year quest to record, on 16mm film, Armenian Genocide survivors around the world. Carla Garapedian narrated Hagopian's film, Voices from the Lake, and The River Ran Red, as well as co-writing Hagopian's film, Germany and the Secret Genocide. After Hagopian's death, she became the project leader of the Armenian Film Foundation's Armenian Genocide Testimonies collection, which digitized approximately 400 interviews of Armenian genocide survivors (filmed by J. Michael Hagopian) for the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive. The Shoah Foundation, founded by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, created the Visual History Archive, to make available 52,000 Holocaust testimonies for research and education. The Visual History Archive has now added testimonies from other genocides, including the Armenian Genocide. Garapedian continues to work with the Armenian Film Foundation, one of the preeminent centers for visual images of Armenian history and culture.