Representative Case Study
Armenian Film Foundation
The Armenian Film Foundation is a non-profit organization
dedicated to the documentation and preservation of
Armenian culture and heritage in multi-media formats.
“Jerry’s strategic leadership of the Armenian Film
Foundation ensured the successful integration of our
Armenian Genocide Survivor interview collection into the
USC Shoah archive.”
- Dr. Carla Garapedian, Filmmaker
The Armenian Film Foundation Profile
A primary focus of the Foundation has been the
preservation and public dissemination of 400 interviews
of survivors of and witnesses to the Armenian Genocide
filmed by Dr. J. Michael Hagopian during his lifetime.
Toward that end, the Foundation entered into an
agreement with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute to
incorporate these testimonies into their Visual History
Archive that has made them available worldwide to
benefit scholars, students, historians and the media.
Fountainhead
Role and Services
Jerry Papazian led the Foundation's effort to
incorporate its filmed interviews of Armenian Genocide
witnesses and survivors into Steven Spielberg's USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Four
hundred of these interviews have been added to 52,000
extant interviews of Holocaust survivors and other
genocides. Jerry also oversaw the extensive
fundraising efforts for the preparation, digitizing,
translation and indexing that was required. As
chairman of the Foundation, Jerry provides the strategic
leadership to define and implement its educational and
historical mission and manages the relationships within
and among the various internal and external communities
and partnerships with national and international and
cultural institutions. |

(Above) Steven Spielberg
joins filmmaker Dr. Carla Garapedian and Jerry Papazian
to announce a new home for the Armenian Genocide
Testimony Collection at the USC Shoah Foundations
Institute for Visual History and Education. |