Adapted from the work of beloved Armenian author Hrant Matevosyan, Henrik Malyan’s cult satire and comic pastorale demonstrates that rebellion and discontent in the 1960s was not limited to Russia and its cities, but instead reared their head throughout the Soviet space. A splendid example of the poetry and humour of the Armenian screen tradition, and widely celebrated as the greatest Armenian film ever made.

Selected as Armenia’s entry for Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards, this stunning Armenian-French-Belgian drama is a deeply poetic exploration of state borders. Set in the empty airport of Stepanakert in Nagorno Karabakh, a breakaway state in the South Caucasus, a French engineer must decide whether or not to shutter the building and thereby the hopes and dreams of its workers. A moving portrait of what it means to feel displaced within the space you call home.

26 May 2022, Armenian Institute, online panel discussion.

Films available from 19 May on our website.

A series of critically-acclaimed, female-directed shorts exploring our relationship to the place we call home – from a block of unfinished flats in Yerevan dedicated to the legacy of the USSR, to the enriching air of Armenia’s salt mines.

Garegin Papoyan captures the absurd ironies of a community defined by a frozen military conflict in this wry observational documentary. Fully equipped for accommodating small civilian flights, the recently rebuilt Stepanakert Airport in the break-away Republic of Artsakh does not operate due to the permanent threat of missile strikes. Unwilling to risk any lives, the airport, nevertheless, remains “open”. The dreary ritual of keeping the standby facility operational turns the workers into a closely-knit family unit, where each individual lives out their personal dreams while continuing to hope for the basic freedoms to cross borders and receive guests.

The season closes with a thrilling opportunity to introduce UK audiences to the work of Bagrat Oganesyan and his proto-feminist adaptation of one of Armenia’s most famous novellas. Hailing from the same author of We Are Our Mountains, Autumn Sun tells the story of a girl cajoled into marriage with a much older man and her journey to make a meaningful life for herself in a rural village. Shot through with extraordinary cinematography by Gagik Avakyan and Karen Mesyan, and boasting a powerhouse performance by Anida Gukasyan, Autumn Sun is an undiscovered classic of late 70s Armenian cinema.