
“A Feeling of Endless Night”: DP Arseni Khachaturan on April

In April, the sophomore feature from Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, a small-town obstetrician (Ia Sukhitashvili) comes under scrutiny when a baby dies during delivery. The investigation, spearheaded by the father of the deceased infant, threatens to also expose the young woman’s clandestine abortion operation.
Cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan tells Filmmaker about shooting a live birth scene, her recurring collaboration with Kulumbegashvili and the team’s naturalistic approach to lighting.
See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.
Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job?
Khachaturan: Dea Kulumbegashvili and I grew up together as filmmakers—we’ve known each other and have been working together for over 8 years now. She is an incredible force, and my most trusted collaborator. I am grateful to have been a cinematographer on her sophomore feature April after working together on her debut Beginning, as well as her short film Lethe before that.
Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them? How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?
Khachaturan: We wanted the film to be a tactile, physical experience. We have been driving trough the villages of the region where the film was shot (Eastern Georgia). Nature in this place is spectacular. We wanted to make this film an experience that would be felt as a physical journey, very close to us, very close to the screen. The camera became our main tool for this. In many places of the film the camera became a point of view of the pain character and it also carries the viewer, “moving” the viewer through the spaces.
Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, of photography, or something else?
Khachaturan: We obsess over art and photography. Both Dea and I like to say that we’re influenced by everything that is visual, what is music and sound, sculptures and architecture, but most importantly the place where we made the film.
Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did?
Khachaturan: We shot the film with the Arricam LT. It is an incredible camera that i can totally rely on in any situation, and will always be my go-to when it comes to 35mm.
Filmmaker: What lenses did you use?
Khachaturan: We shot the majority of the film with an 18mm Master Prime lens, but there are also a very few shots where we felt like we needed a 35mm lens as well.
Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.
Khachaturan: We approached lighting in a very non-intrusive and naturalistic way. Some of the scenes that take place in villages are lit primarily with practical lights that were available to us in those houses—sometimes it is simply just bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. We wanted to keep the conditions people really live in as they are.
Additionally we wanted to have a stark contrast between that and, for example, the hospital, which Dea wanted to feel bright, almost sterile in its lighting approach.
All night exterior scenes were filmed in the very late moments of a magic hour, when you still see a very deep blue in the sky, and silhouettes of mountains, which imposed a challenge on our shooting schedule, but was necessary to create a feeling of endless night, where it is not always clear if its getting darker, or brighter, and sense of time almost doesn’t exist, when the main character Nina drives through the fields and villages surrounding the town.
Filmmaker: What was the most difficult scene to realize and why? And how did you do it?
Khachaturan: The scene of childbirth was the most difficult, as it is a real birth. We have prepared for this day for months, we had the camera rigged overhead and on a standby at the hospital. One very early morning we got a call from the hospital, we woke up the crew and immidiately rushed there. However when we actually witnessed and were able to grasp the moment of birth, it was the most humbling and most rewarding experience at the same time. It is hard to put it into words, but what happened in that room that night, with our camera rolling, is unlike anything i have ever felt while making a film. It was life changing.
Filmmaker: Finally, describe the finishing of the film. How much of your look was “baked in” versus realized in the DI?
Khachaturan: We did everything we could possibly do in camera, as me and Dea always do. Rain drops on the lens, thunderstorms, rockets that are being launched from the fields by farmers to fight hail, the prosthetic creature—all of this is in camera, not in VFX.
I was fortunate enough to work with an incredibly talented colorist Peter Bernaers, who brought his ideas and sensibility and became our very strong creative partner in the process. The work he has done is truly remarkable.
TECH BOX
Film Title: April
Camera: Arricam LT
Lenses: Master Prime 18mm, 35mm
Lighting: ARRI / Creamsource
Processing: HIVENTY
Color Grading: Rotor Film GmbH, Baselight, Colorist: Peter Bernaers