★★★★☆

The newest film in the programme, Dalila, focuses on a young sculptor from Yerevan, Victor (played by musician Nerses Avetisyan), who travels to a rural village to install his latest piece.

The guiding essence of the film is doublethink, first coined in George Orwell’s 1984, a line of which precedes the opening scene. There are multiple layers of this theme that writer and director Ines Karapetyan examines in the 16-minute short, exploring trust and culpability within Victor’s host family and in the village as a whole. One of the strongest throughlines is the distrust the host family feels towards Victor, despite their continuous hospitality, debating whether, as an artist and city resident, he might be ‘one of “them” ’ — in other words, someone queer — while at the same time ignoring the sexual assault of their daughter at the hands of their dear friend and neighbour.

Beyond its content, the film is beautiful, the first half in particular featuring almost ethereal lighting, capturing in a sense the innocence the characters begin with before the film’s darker undertones are introduced.

For a graduation film, it is a serious achievement, and it will be interesting to see what Karapetyan works on next.

Resonance

Still from film.

★★★★☆

Set largely over the course of one day, Resonance follows a piano teacher (Marjan Avetisyan) as she discovers her daughter is not following the path she so clearly set out for her.

Rather than focusing on the daughter breaking free of parental control and striking out on her own, the film examines the emotions from the mother’s point of view, as a woman who has convinced herself that she is in the right — ‘I know everything, and I know what’s the right path for you’. Yet, as she soon learns after confronting her daughter, her beliefs are not inviolable, and perhaps the changing dynamics between mother and daughter might help both embark on new journeys and paths to happiness.

At 15 minutes, Lucy Vartanian’s short manages to be at once humorous, vexatious, and relatable.

Seagulls (2023)

Still from film.

★★★☆☆

Lilit Movisyan’s film begins ostensibly as a story about a sex worker and a john who bond while exploring the industrial ruins of rural Armenia. In this context, the film could be seen as a commentary on the country’s post-Soviet economic decline and the opportunities left for young people remaining amidst the structural decay.

Yet the film’s eventual twist negates this focus, instead leaving the 20-minute film to be read as a meandering examination of modern relationships, one unaided by the male character’s rather wooden acting.

It Takes A Village… (2022)

Still from film.

4.5/5★

This beautifully-shot film examines a rural Armenian village inhabited only by women — the mothers, wives, and daughters of migrant workers in Russia. As the title suggests, it takes everyone working together to ensure the functioning of the village, and to help everyone’s emotional health.

Ophelia Harutyunyan doesn’t shy away from portraying the multitude of attitudes this lifestyle engenders within the community, including stoic perseverance, as exemplified by the main character Mariam, who just focuses on the next day when her husband calls to say he cannot return home as planned; bitterness, as illustrated by Lilik, whose husband brought home a ‘Russian bastard’; and naïveté, which the young, and pregnant, Anush, originally from the city, displays in her attempts to delay giving birth in the hope her husband will appear.

Some of the scenes of female bonding can come across as trite, but overall, the film is an excellent examination of what it means to be the wife of a migrant worker in today’s Armenia.

Handstand (2021)

Still from film.

3.5/5★

Ovsanna Shekoyan’s 15-minute film follows the aftermath of a medical emergency at a rural school, in particular, the subsequent police investigation into the gym teacher who was present at the scene.

There are no clear-cut answers, whether in terms of why the accident occurred, or who, if anyone, should be blamed. This is instead what the films asks the viewer to mull over: should we judge the ambulance who claimed the heavy snow meant they could not come in time, forcing the teachers to call the boy’s father, wasting crucial time; is the gym teacher to blame for having the kids in his care do handstands in the wintery weather; is it the parents for not notifying the school of any potential medical problems that their child may have had?

The cinematic wintery blues and grays place emphasise the bleakness of the situation, where there is no clear good or bad, and no easy way to escape the guilt of what occurred.