Armenian Phantoms: a brief film history
To accompany our interview with Tamara Stepanyan about her new documentary My Armenian Phantoms, and to celebrate the 2025 Armenian Film Festival, we present this special playlist.
In her latest feature documentary My Armenian Phantoms, director Tamara Stepanyan carefully weaves together three historical threads – of film, family, and nation – into a poetic account of a life lived through images. Running from the Armenian Genocide through to the fall of communism, and through several generations of Stepanyan family lore, the director combines archival footage, a rich catalogue of film clips, and atmospheric present-day sequences to relate the triumphs and tragedies of a national cinema alongside her own personal triumphs and tragedies. For the Klassiki Journal, we recently spoke with Stepanyan about her film and its journey through her nation’s cinema history, ahead of its UK premiere at the 2025 Armenian Film Festival in London, which runs from 4-7 December. For Klassiki subscribers, here is an exclusive playlist featuring some of the films we discussed.
Read our interview with Tamara here and explore the 2025 Armenian Film Festival here.
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House on the Volcano
Directed by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan • 1928 • USSR/Armenia/Azerbaijan
To celebrate the centenary of Armenian film, we present a new restoration of this neglected silent classic by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan, the founding father of the nation’s cinema. A co-production of the Armenian and Azerbaijani national stu...
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Hakob Hovnatanyan
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1967 • Armenia/USSR
After completing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and before embarking on The Colour of Pomegranates, the great Sergei Parajanov produced this exquisite miniature about the work of Hakob Hovnatanyan, a nineteenth-century Armenian portraitist rever...
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We Are Our Mountains
Directed by Henrik Malyan • 1969 • USSR/Armenia
When a petty dispute over a lost sheep gets out of hand, a group of shepherds find their mountain idyll interrupted by the long arm of the law in Henrik Malyan’s cult Soviet satire, adapted from his own work by beloved Armenian author Hrant Matevos...
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Autumn Sun
Directed by Bagrat Oganesyan • 1977 • USSR / Armenia
Strikingly progressive and beautifully crafted, Bagrat Oganesyan’s Autumn Sun tells the story of Aghun (a bravado performance by the director’s own wife, Anahit Gukasyan), a simple woman forced to contend with the banal cruelties of the men wh...
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A Piece of Sky
Directed by Henrik Malyan • 1980 • USSR/Armenia
Nothing is easy for Torik, a shy orphan adopted by his aunt and uncle: he struggles to fit into village life, learn a craft, or find a wife. When Torik does fall in love – with Anjel, a local prostitute – he must face down the disapproval of his na...
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The Spring Heghnar
Directed by Arman Manaryan • 1971 • USSR/Armenia
Adapted from one of the most celebrated works of 20th-century Armenian literature, Arman Manaryan’s soulful classic reflects on love lost and the ties that bind. Following the death of his beloved but unfaithful wife Heghnar, sculptor Mkrtich (Arm...
