Interview with Joseph Hovsepian

Soon after immigrating to California in 2000, Joseph Hovsepian founded JFA Productions (Joseph Film & Animation, LLC) and has produced independent projects and remarkable work for TV and Satellite stations ever since.

Joseph Hovsepian: Documentary is more real. And in our case, having tons of video material from my father’s life and the situation in Iran, it was the best choice. Cost wise, it was also a better fit for our budget. Nevertheless, I hope that one day in future I will be given the opportunity, and the budget, to make it into a feature film.

CM: What did you gain by creating a documentary that would have been lost in a biographical film? What message or information did the documentary form allow you to communicate?

JH: Testimonies and interviews enabled the documentary to have a multi-dimensional, cultural, and global perspective. More importantly, the documentary could best describe the real character, my father Haik Hovsepian, by giving the audience the chance to meet the real hero and observe him in every part of the story, up to his martyrdom.

Through this documentary, viewers can hear his voice, his singing, and his love towards family, friends and foes. So, there would be no question in the viewer’s mind of how accurately an actor is portraying the real Haik Hovsepian.

CM: A Cry From Iran was filmed in five different countries and six states in the United States. How many days were spent filming?

JH: We spent over two months filming and traveling within the U.S. and everywhere else, except Iran. The clips from Iran were shot within a long period of time, years before we started editing the film. Some of these clips were brought to U.S. by ourselves, and some were sent later.

CM: Why was Turkey chosen for the country where you would film the reenactments?

JH: Certain areas of Turkey look very similar to Iran. The way people dress is similar, women cover their heads, the traffic flow is similar, etc. There were also less limitations and danger for us, compared to Iran. We also had access to many people in Turkey who were willing to contribute to this project, as extras or production assistants.

CM: The interviews in this documentary are beautifully and seamlessly interwoven with images, reenactments, and your brother Gilbert’s musical score. What is Andre’s background in editing?

JH: As a teenager in 2003, Andre Hovsepian started editing TV shows, and very soon he proved to be the guy in our team with a very unique eye, able to see the power in color and drama creation. By the time we wanted to edit A Cry From Iran, he was very well trained and experienced.

On this documentary, as Andre shared, he saw clips from his dad that he had not seen in real life, because he was only 10 when my dad was martyred. The process of editing this film was another chance for Andre to see dad frame by frame, and to get to know him even more.

CM: What process did you use to sort through 200 hours of archive footage and choose which clips should be used for the documentary?

JH: This was actually the hardest process for us. We had to separate ourselves from the documentary character. We had to constantly think of what would tell the story the best, versus what would be politically, socially, and relationship-wise correct.

We ended up with a two-hour version of the documentary. Then we had the hardest time of surgery, to cut it down to 55 minutes. We had to mercilessly take the cutting seizer and shorten anything that seemed like repetition or was not useful to the average audience. Thankfully, we had some advisors around us, not related to Haik Hovsepian, who were not emotionally attached to him. They could give their honest opinion about which clips should be cut out.

CM: How did Open Doors International come to executive produce this documentary? Did you find them, or did they find you?

JH: It is very interesting – as if this marriage was pre-planned in heaven. I never knew that ODI was into films. I had contacted Voice of the Martyrs first, but after several discussions with them, it turned out that they were not able to pick up this project.

Months after that, brother Johan from Open Doors came to our house, and as we were having fellowship, this project idea came up. He asked me to send a proposal to the ODI management, and I did. Weeks after that, we were ready to move forward. I was really excited that the Lord opened a door where I was not expecting it. In this case, the Lord really did open doors, through Open Doors.

CM: How did the Lord prepare you to take on and complete the production of A Cry From Iran, through life experiences leading up to this project?

JH: I think it was a purification process as well as a challenge for us. I have wanted to do this project since right after my father’s martyrdom, but it is as if God wanted us to be emotionally ready. This period of years gave us time to find ourselves in the loving arms of the Lord once again, and to be sure of that. It gave us time to be trained and to get the skills needed to pull off such a personally-attached project. It also gave us a community in the U.S. to live and work in.

CM: What went through your mind as you reenacted and filmed the events surrounding your father’s murder? Were there times when you or your brother felt that you couldn’t bear to continue the project?

JH: As I shared in the documentary, seeing my dad all in blood left me with a shock, and left a snap shot on my mind that has had a long-lasting effect. But I have always trusted the Holy Spirit as the power that can overcome anything, even the hardest tragedies. The night before filming the martyrdom reenactments, I was nervous, but at the same time I spent more time praying and focusing on the results the film could have. I focused on the future, rather than the past.

On the actual day of filming the murder shots, when the makeup artist was working on the bloody shirt, knife scars and stabs on the body, I suddenly noticed that my brother, Andre Hovsepian, disappeared. I looked for him, and minutes later I found him with tears in his eyes in the bathroom. The person playing my father in that scene looked exactly like Haik. And the makeup artist had carefully matched all the bruises, scars and stab marks, to the original pictures of my father on the murder scene. It was as if we saw my dad’s martyrdom right there, in front of our own eyes.

CM: What was the biggest hurdle that you faced during the filmmaking process, and how did you overcome it?

JH: We had a B-Roll shooting list sent to a friend in Iran, so he could do some of our filming over there, as we needed certain shots in HD format. This person filmed almost everything we had requested, but right before sending us the footage, he was arrested for evangelism and other church activities he was involved in. We had to wait anxiously for him to be released, since he was the only contact on the job. Unfortunately, he was not released on time, and we had to use older SD footage for the coverage we needed.

CM: What was the most significant lesson that God taught you, from a personal standpoint, during the making of A Cry From Iran?

JH: That He is faithful to me now and He will always be. He gave me the desire of my heart by allowing me to make this film. He taught me to trust Him in every circumstance of my life. And finally, through this film, He let me once again live with my father, frame by frame, and let me see what a real hero he was, and be assured that I will meet him soon again in heaven.

CM: The story of the car accident, in which your parents’ lost their firstborn and only child at the time, and the missionary couple they were with lost all three of their children, was extremely moving. How did your parents speak of this tragedy after it occurred?

JH: Considering I was born four years after that, I saw their reaction in the long run. But any time in life that the first Joseph Hovsepian came up, it would be followed by the description of heaven, and how soon we will see him there. He would have been four years older than me, so we would sometimes calculate how old he would have been. But overall, my parents were very calm about it in general, and that made me realize how real and close heaven is for them.

CM: By your best estimate, how many people were touched directly by your father and the living testimony of his preaching, teaching, and charity work?

JH: I would think minimum several thousands. This is at the time that the church was not that large. But many people, even in the West, were blessed by his sermons and his visits to conferences around the world. Many Muslims in Iran, in the earthquake areas, were blessed by his help. Kurdish refugees were blessed by his support.

CM: How many of your family members (brothers, uncles, etc.) are pastors, despite what happened to your father?

JH: All Haik Hovsepian's brothers (my three uncles) are pastors. And all of my family are somehow involved in preaching. My two brothers and I don’t have the title of pastor, but for the past several years we have been preaching on satellite TV. Sometimes we preach and share the message, in different forms of media, making it more attractive and easy to communicate with the Iranians and Farsi-speaking world.

A Cry From Iran aerial shot

CM: How have individuals in the United States, both Christians and non-Christians, responded to this film?

JH: More than our expectation. Of course, Christians have all found this story a great inspiration to their faith and walk with the Lord. They have been challenged in the areas of faith, forgiveness, mission, and care for the persecuted world. This film is constantly being screened in small and large churches around the world as a tool for the local churches. Some churches also invited us to share after screening the film. TBN has already showed it eight times, and millions were touched by watching.

Interestingly, non-Christians have also been deeply touched by the film and some have been even saved through this film. It is worth mentioning that Muslims around the world, including in Iran, have mostly loved the film, and some of them are distributing this film among their neighborhood. They don’t find this film a threat or attack, or revenge on Islam, but a simple message of love and sacrifice.