"The Need to Be Multiple" - Interview with Serge AVEDIKIAN

The article is an interview with Serge Avédikian — a French actor, director and theater figure of Armenian origin — published in issue No. 3 (24) of Ashkhar.org. The material is devoted to the protagonist's creative and personal journey, viewed through the prism of multiple identity — Armenian, French, Soviet.

Introduction and biographical context

The interview opens with an account of Avédikian's childhood in Soviet Armenia, to which his family repatriated from France in 1947. Particular attention is paid to:

• the atmosphere of the French-speaking environment within the family and at School No. 119 in Yerevan;
• the cultural surroundings, which included an acquaintance with Tigran Mansuryan;
• the sense of a "prosperous era" of Soviet Armenia in the 1960s, which opened a window onto the West through music and culture.

Departure and adaptation in France

A key turning point was the family's departure for France in 1970, experienced by the protagonist as a painful separation from his homeland, friends, and first love. This experience of separation later formed the basis of the documentary film "What Became of My Friends?" (1982), which the author of the interview connects to the broader theme of the Armenian diaspora and the dispersal of the people.

Formation as an artist

A separate section is devoted to Avédikian's development as a theater and film actor: his training at the Modon conservatory, his work with leading French directors (Patrice Chéreau, Claude Régy, Jacques Lassalle), as well as his principled refusal to change his surname for the sake of career convenience.

Cinematic path and the Armenian theme

Significant space is devoted to Avédikian's directing and producing activities, his creative dialogue with the legacy of Parajanov, Tarkovsky, and especially Peleshyan — connected to whom is the story of an unrealized joint project, explained by the incompatibility of the Soviet model of creative work with the Western contract system. The documentary film "We Drank the Same Water," shot in the Turkish village of the director's ancestors — a project that took twenty years to realize and, according to the author, opened a path toward Armenian-Turkish dialogue — is examined in detail.

Of particular interest is the discussion of roles in Robert Guédiguian's films, in particular the role of Charles Aznavour's father in the film "The Army of Crime," as well as reflections on parallels with the acting career of Simon Abkarian.

Reflections on creative work

The concluding part of the interview is devoted to comparing theater, film directing, and film acting as fundamentally different yet complementary forms of self-realization, as well as a reflection on the devaluation of the concept of "artist" in contemporary culture.

Key conclusion

The interview's final thought is that multiple identity is not a source of inner conflict but a creative resource: the ability to exist simultaneously in several cultural and professional hypostases (Armenian and French, actor and director, a man of theater and of cinema) becomes, for the protagonist, the foundation of artistic freedom and allows him to overcome historically given boundaries and fears.