Mediamax and VivaCell-MTS presented “100 Seconds” project

Mediamax media company and VivaCell-MTS presented 100 Seconds project in Yerevan today.

Vigen Sargsyan, Chief of Staff of the Armenian President and Coordinator of the Events Dedicated to the Armenian Genocide Centennial, also attended the presentation which took place in the Komitas Museum-Institute.

100 Seconds project is based on testimonies of Genocide survivors published by the National Archive of Armenia. People having public influence around the world and in their countries (writers, musicians, directors, actors) are reading 100 seconds extracts from testimonies.

All in all, 24 videos were filmed which will be presented at www.mediamax.am/100seconds and on a Youtube channel on March 23-April 23.

VivaCell-MTS is the general partner of the initiative and post-production is done by Tumo Company.



“The main goal of 100 Seconds project is to call people’s attention to the horrible sufferings that Armenians went through 100 years ago. It’s no easy to read and listen to the testimonials. But the more people are shocked by the testimonials the more likely they are going to do their best to prevent new genocides. Our project is meant for denying Adolph Hitler’s words voiced in 1939, a week before invading Poland: “And who now remembers the annihilation of Armenians?””, said Mediamax Director Ara Tadevosyan.

“Talking about 1.5mln victims, we often touch upon the tragedy in a too statistical manner. We forget that 1.5mln were concrete people and we deal with millions of human tragedies. The Genocide was not only a national but personal tragedy”, he said.

Speaking about the project’s format of encapsulating a testimony in 100 seconds, the Director of Mediamax noted that “in the modern world, the form of presentation is as important as the quality of the content”.

“Unfortunately, the life pace nowadays doesn’t allow people to read full testimonies, and the format of 100 seconds enables us to present what we want”, he said.

Ara Tadevosyan expressed his gratitude to VivaCell-MTS for acting as the general partner of the project and covering the costs for organizing the filming in various countries.

“To rule out the possible false perception, it should be said that all the participants have read the testimonies without receiving any payment for it,” stressed the Director of Mediamax.

Ara Tadevosyan especially thanked Tumo Director Vigen Tumanyan, designer Vahan Balasanyan for developing the project’s logo, and songwriter and musician Serzh Melkonyan for his significant technical assistance.

“Over the last 10 years, we have carried out a number of important projects in cooperation with Mediamax but this project is special as it should remind the world about the dreadful page of our nation’s history. We are grateful to people of various nationalities who took part in this project, thus proving that the Genocide issue does not refer to only Armenians,” said VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph at the presentation.

“This project is a message to the civilized world that we should not forget – we should remember, recount and remind everyone of it and if we do not condemn what happened, we will then encourage new genocides,” said Ralph Yirikian.

Secretary of State Commission Coordinating Events Dedicated to the Armenian Genocide Centennial Vigen Sargsyan expressed his gratitude to Mediamax for 100 Seconds project. 

He recalled that the Armenian Genocide Centennial commemoration is built around four cornerstones – memory, gratitude, international struggle and rebirth.

“100 Seconds project is a great input in the “memory” section. The dissemination of the stories of the Genocide survivors has exceptional significance as we can show through it how this crime might roll into every family,” said Vigen Sargsyan.

“I would like to express special thanks to VivaCell-MTS, which regularly stands by such most fundamental social initiatives. In this case we have an outcome, which is important in that the project participants have not received any payment. They used their fame and popularity to make our history more audible in the world. As the Secretary of State Commission, I hail the project and ask everyone to help share the materials,” said Vigen Sargsyan.