Review | Apricot Stone: Armenian shorts at the 2026 Golden Apricot Internation

The Golden Apricot International Film Festival’s short film competition Apricot Stone brings together 10 short Armenian films of any genre from five to 45 minutes. This year, the focus was on the ‘unease of the interior’, or as the festival’s daily magazine put it, on probing the ‘fraught tensions within Armenia’s own mental borders. The films all focus on emotions and trauma, often through characters struggling to handle their grief after losing a loved one, whether through old age, an accident, or war.

All are impressive works from some of Armenia’s most talented up-and-coming directors. Read on to see OC Media’s thoughts on this edition of Apricot Stone, and which films are not to miss.

Together Alone (2025)

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★★★★☆

This 11-minute documentary by Arthur Sahakyan focuses on Shura, an elderly man residing in an ageing home whose wife Ofelya has recently passed.

The film opens with Ofelya’s wake — it then moves through time in a non-linear pattern, contrasting the couple’s joint existence with what remains for Shura now, his only company memories and a cat. This creative blending of footage is unusual for a documentary, giving the work a more narrative feel.

Aided by the film’s warm tones and introspective mood — there is little dialogue other than a humorous bathroom request; a priest’s prayers; and TV noise — Together Alone makes for an emotional experience, despite the short run-time.

Lola (2025)

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★★★★☆

Russian–Armenian Tamara Ayrapetyan’s debut film focuses on a young, Armenian dancer (Inga Khachatryan) who is haunted by the English-language pop song that was playing when her sister died in a car crash. Fittingly, the song’s main lyrics are ‘get it out’, which, as her grief becomes too powerful to suppress, she does through the power of dance, turning her judged performance into an abstract piece of art through which she can finally engage with her emotions.

While the film is largely predictable due to its rather clichéd foundation, Ayrapetyan’s creative use of collage — through paper-cut outs, drawings, and 3-dimensional red string — breathes new life into the topic, making for a visually stunning 12-minute feature. Overall, it is an impressive debut, and it will be interesting to watch what Ayrapetyan will choose to focus on next, and whether she will continue to connect with her Armenian heritage.

Herostrat (2026)

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3.5/5★

Arthur Nazaretian’s fourth short film follows Hamlet (Vahe Vayan), an office worker grappling with the death of his partner. Inspired by the themes of existentialist French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Nazaretian follows as Hamlet begins to experience deep rage at losing his partner, his resentment towards everything else remaining the same boiling up inside of him until finally bursting out in a series of destructive acts.

It is rather fitting that the main character be named Hamlet, though perhaps a little too on the nose, as he begins to spiral into insanity, prodded by the haunting whispers of his deceased lover. This exploration of madness and unprocessed trauma is aided by the film’s saturation in blue-green tones, increasing the feature’s eeriness, as Hamlet’s emotions and actions are both understandable yet a step too far.

It’s an interesting work, but one that sometimes struggles to fill its 20-minute run-time, focusing too much attention on abstract scenes that do little to push the story forward.

Paid Mourners (2026)

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★★★★★

The stand-out feature of the 2026 Apricot Stone selection is clearly this 35-minute short by Ovsanna Gevorgyan.

The film follows 16-year-old Margo (Armine Avetisyan), a rising TikTok star and K-pop lover who struggles to understand her elderly grandmother Bavo (Tigranuhi Ter-Martirosyan) and her work as a professional mourner. When Bavo decides she only has a few more days to live, she embarks on a frenzied task to educate Margo and prepare her to take over the family tradition. There is just one major issue — Margo has never been able to cry without hiccuping loudly, something likely to cause concern at the funerals and wakes where she would perform.

Gevorgyan does excellent work balancing the film’s humour with its deeper messages of how to experience grief in a modern society where everything is curated and can be swiped past. There is a clear generational divide between Bavo and Margo, with the latter failing to understand, at least at the beginning of the film, her grandmother’s words on how one must accept death as fact to truly live. Margo is tempted by other life paths as well, as a young man attempts to court her, convinced that the path to success lies in becoming a couple and opening up a TikTok shop.

The film also excellently portrays the ongoing gender dynamics at play in both the _expression_ of grief — where for men it is a weakness and women a domain of power — and in the everyday lives of the village women. In one scene, as the pair wander through a graveyard, Bavo tells Margo about how she mourned each person, while also telling her a bit about their lives. For a woman who spent her whole marriage being brutally beaten by her husband, Bavo gathered all of the professional mourners in the region, all of them women, to remember the woman — and perhaps warn her husband that all of these women knew what he did and would support each other.

Gevorgyan is now working on her feature debut film, which, if this short is anything to go by, will be well worth watching upon release.

Relic (2026)

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★★★★☆

Sona Khachatryan’s first short fiction film follows Minas (Alex Melkonyan), a blind boy who struggles living in a household in which his father despises him. The boy’s only source of comfort is his loving grandmother — to Minas, she represents warmth, the reds and oranges of the sunset she describes to him, while his father is the coldness of ice.

One day, his father forces Minas to join him on a hunt, telling him to grab the rabbit he has shot. When Minas finds the rabbit, however, it appears perfectly whole, no injuries in sight — it is the first sign that Minas might have magical abilities to heal. Everything comes with a cost however, and soon after, the grandmother dies, with Minas being sent to live with the local priest.

Throughout the 23-minute film, Khachatryan explores how people with disabilities are treated in rural Armenia. The villagers look at Minas with fear and distaste, wondering why he wasn’t sent away to the orphanage, something his father clearly desired. Their narcissism is further cemented when, after the priest dies, the villagers immediately rush to the church to argue over how it should be repurposed for their own personal gain. Amidst these arguments, Minas wanders away, returning to the nature he so loves.

Relic is a beautifully atmospheric film, imbibed with folklore and wonder. It is no wonder Khachatryan will be included in the 2027 Next Step Studio programme by the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.

A Quiet Blue (2026)

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3.5/5★

This black-and-white short by Ovsanna Shekoyan follows 19-year-old Albert (Arnold Ghazaryan), a veteran of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War who is haunted by his lingering PTSD.

The film opens at a doctor’s office, as Albert recounts his recent experiences — his fear at leaving the house without friends, his attempts to follow through with the mandated VR therapy. There are no details about what he actually went through, the focus is instead only on the ongoing effects of trauma.

The focus then switches to an afternoon out with his friends as they hunt down a drug cache in an abandoned sanatorium. It is implied that a police crackdown on drugs is ongoing, perhaps as a result of increased trade stemming from unprocessed trauma from the conflict. A sense of foreboding follows the characters, with warnings to be cautious by one friend summarily dismissed by another, laying down the seeds of what is to come.

The film embraces the abstract, focusing on memory rather than cohesive story-telling. It is an atmospheric film, yet it never quite conveys to the audience the true depth of what Albert is experiencing, the lack of an emotional bond between the audience and the character weakening the film’s impact.

Kafka (2026)

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★★★★☆

This surreal fiction debut by Vahan Khachatryan follows a young man named Grigor Grigoryan (Aren Voskanyan) who wakes up one day believing himself transformed into the 20th-century Czech writer Franz Kafka. It is a play, of course, on Kafka’s own novella The Metamorphosis in which a character named Gregor wakes up to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect.

In Khachatryan’s version, however, Grigoryan simply wakes up feeling profound sorrow, frailty, and an emptiness in life — classic markers of depression. Has he really woken up as Kafka, or is he just attempting to understand these darker emotions for the first time?

The 16-minute film follows Grigoryan as he traverses Yerevan, attempting to talk to various people about what has happened to him, with each giving him their own solutions. His father suggests getting married or drinking; his feasting friend tells him to just eat something; a basketball player believes sports is the only answer; and so on. Eventually, Grigoryan ends up back where he started, his bedroom at home, this time, however, making his own decisions, embarking on a strange, frenzied dance through which it appears his emotions are released, presumably for the better.

For Those (2026)

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★★★★☆

This French–Belgian–Armenian co-production by Emile Parseghian, his debut film, explores diaspora relations through a grieving family.

The film follows the French–Armenian Levon, or Léon (Louis Memmi), returning to Armenia for the first time in years to attend the burial of his cousin Hrant, who died six months earlier on the front-lines of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. No longer able to speak Armenian, Léon struggles to connect with his relatives, especially his younger cousin (Artyom Avetisyan), who has his own methods of coping with his brother’s death and begins to view Léon as a tourist, unable to understand Armenia’s reality.

It is an emotional film, showing how distance can harm even the closest of bonds, as differing experiences create different understandings and opinions of the world and our places within it. Parseghian also masterfully captures the pain of Armenia’s youth, who have seen their older male relatives off to war, many to not return, and their own fears and desires that have emerged as a result.

Dialogues Solitaires (2026)

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4.5/5★

Beirut-born Serouj Hovsepian’s latest short, a French–Armenian co-production, explores missed connections and the meaning of love during one Parisian night.

The film centres around Aren (Vincent Pasdermadjian), a young man in love with his flatmate Van (Bleu Binet), who himself appears to be in love with a woman named Léa. Unable to confess his true feelings, Aren leaves the flat for a local queer bar, where he comes across an old flame, Théo (Victorien Bonnet). The two, after some awkward first moments, eventually settle into a conversation, Aren finally opening up about the love he feels towards Van and Théo explaining what really happened two years ago, and his own stronger feelings for Aren.

Though a simple premise, the emotional depth of conversation between the two men makes for captivating viewing. Their experiences are familiar and relatable to all, yet are told in a way that opens up the viewer to think about their own past loves in new ways.

The Eternal Red (2025)

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3.5/5★

Though only 11 minutes, this short Armenian–German co-production by Naira Sargsyan manages to pack a wealth of story in — perhaps, at times, too much.

The film opens as a one-armed man (Armen Kerobyan) steps into a photo exhibition titled ‘War: The Eternal Red’. As visitors blithely comment on the various images, making banal statements about what they see or planning where to go clubbing next, the man stands apart, accompanied only by a scarred man (Sargis Manukyan). Both transfixed on a photo showing a prisoner exchange, the setting making it clear that both men are present in the photo, from opposing sides. Yet here, in this gallery, they are the only two who understand what war is, drawing them together.

It is an interesting premise, yet one that is weakened by trying to over-emphasise the lack of understanding from the modern youth towards these surviving soldiers. At one point, anti-plastic protesters enter the exhibition, throwing red paint all over the photos and asking the veterans why they aren’t speaking up. The scene is over-the-top, draining the fraught emotions that were building up between the two men. Torn between these different foci, the film does not quite live up to what it could have been.

All films were screened in Yerevan on 17 July 2026 as part of the 23rd Golden Apricot International Film Festival.

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