The filmmaking duo embarked on an experimental journey to rediscover archival materials, breathing new life into sequences abandoned to dust and the ravages of time through the technique of found footage. Thanks to a device they invented – the analytical camera – they managed to recover images from the early 20th-century nitrate film reels and study each individual frame. Developed for the film From the Pole to the Equator (1986), this apparatus allowed the filmmakers to re-photograph the frames to create a new visual work. The material came from the archive of Luca Comerio, who, with his Prevost 35mm camera, filmed the trenches and battlefields of World War I and the atrocities of colonialism.
The recovery of these films serves to reprocess the atrocities of the 20th century, as exemplified in Men, Years, Life (1990), which addresses the Armenian genocide in Turkey, or in Oh! Man (2004), which reflects on the aftermath through images of war amputees being fitted with artificial.
Following the death of his partner Angela in 2018, Yervant processed his grief by visualizing the notebooks she had filled throughout her life with notes, memories, and watercolor drawings. The trilogy Angela’s Diaries – Two Filmmakers (2018–2025) stands as an artistic and poetic home movie that transcends life itself.
For forty years, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi collaborated on a unique artistic journey. Internationally recognized, their work analyzes found footage and links modernity with 20th-century imperialist violence. After two previous chapters released in 2018 and 2019...
