By Cinara Marquis
For Cole Kachejian, film has always been a medium for storytelling.
“Every piece of art that I craft and create, I have a meaning for it, in one way or another,” Kachejian said. “It comes from the heart. It comes from experience.”
Inspired by his own life and the people around him, Kachejian’s art speaks on the human experience.
“Seeing what people can lose, I started becoming a lot more captivated by the way that people feel and the way that people think,” Kachejian said. “And so, I thought of a way in which I can intertwine the two fields so that I can be a storyteller, but not just of random stories, of people’s stories.”
This is what led him to study psychology alongside TV/Video Production at SUNY Plattsburgh.
Growing up with various medical disabilities, he was unable to do the same activities as other children, he found joy at the movie theatre. He recalled the rush of excitement he gets in the auditorium: the huge sound, the epic music, the incredible stories being told.
“Everything that the movie theater brings to you is what I want to bring to other people and the stories that I tell, you know, that excitement, that passion. So that’s where my love for filmmaking began: as a viewer, realizing that, hey, I could do this stuff too,” Kachejian said.
So, Kachejian picked up a camera and realized that he didn’t just love movies and filmmaking, but capturing the moment, capturing reality, no matter how raw.
“I want to make stories that look at the truth and stuff like that, and while still being creative and entertaining and engaging, I want people to know what it’s actually like to suffer these things, to know how it is to fall and how to rise back up, to show that this isn’t just all darkness that there is light too,” Kachejian said.
In 2021, Kachejian was diagnosed with leukemia. After a year of intense chemotherapy he was miserable and realized that he had lost himself. To reignite his passion for filmmaking Kachejian began recording his journey with cancer through a documentary titled “Paused: A Cancer Documentary.” He completed it in 2023.
“My documentary isn’t just about my pain. It’s about what to do with that pain that we can’t control. I realize that we can’t always control what happens in our stories, but we do get to control how we respond to it, and how we let it dictate our lives. So making that documentary for me was how I got to take that control of my story, and how I decided to tell it,” he said.
Kachejian continues working on stories that aim to inspire others with empathetic narratives.
View “Paused: A Cancer Documentary” live at 5 p.m. on April 27 in Yokum 200. Watch it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aayqk46RNYw
The stories you will tell and the people you will help are limitless my son. We are inspired by your compassion and your strength in all that you do and all you endure.