Golden Apricot is a festival where feature films naturally get most of the attention. There are bigger premieres, familiar names, international guests and films arriving from festivals elsewhere. But while covering this year’s edition in Yerevan, I kept coming back to “Apricot Stone.” It is a much smaller competition: 10 Armenian short films this year. And they were quite far from each other, both in subject and in the way they were made.

The lineup included “Paid Mourners” by Ovsanna Gevorgyan, “Together Alone” by Arthur Sahakyan, “A Quiet Blue” by Ovsanna Shekoyan, “Relic” by Sona Khachatryan, “Lola” by Tamara Ayrapetyan, “The Eternal Red” by Naira Sargsyan, “Kafka” by Vahan Khachatryan, “Dialogues Solitaires” by Serouj Hovsepian, “Herostrat” by Arthur Nazaretian and “For Those” by Emile Parseghian. 

There was no obvious “Apricot Stone” film this year, at least not to me.

“Paid Mourners” is perhaps the easiest example. Ovsanna Gevorgyan takes the tradition of professional female mourners and places it in the life of a 16-year-old girl who would rather build an audience on TikTok. Margo has little interest in inheriting the family profession, but her grandmother’s approaching death suddenly makes that choice much less theoretical.

“Paid Mourners,” by Ovsanna Gevorgyan.

“Together Alone” could hardly be more different. Arthur Sahakyan begins after Ofelya’s death, with her husband, Shura, left in the house where they had lived together for nearly 50 years. The film then moves backward, mixing the present with footage from their shared life. The house slowly becomes more than a location.

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Ovsanna Shekoyan’s “A Quiet Blue” stays with 19-year-old Albert, who is living with postwar panic attacks and trying VR therapy. Around him is a largely empty postindustrial landscape and, for a while, the ordinary company of his friends.

Sona Khachatryan’s “Relic” takes us somewhere else again. Minas is a blind 10-year-old boy believed to have a healing ability. His grandmother protects him. After her death, and with his father unwilling to accept him, a village priest takes him in. What follows is less about proving whether Minas can perform miracles than about what people decide to believe about him.

In “Lola,” Tamara Ayrapetyan works with grief through dance, music and editing. Lola has lost her sister, and much of what she cannot say finds another route through her body. Armenian and Russian also coexist in the film, which becomes important once you know something about Ayrapetyan’s own background.

Vahan Khachatryan’s “Kafka” starts with a strange proposition: A young man named Grigor Grigoryan wakes up and finds that he has become Franz Kafka.

“The Eternal Red,” “Herostrat” and “For Those” completed the lineup. By that point, any idea that these 10 films belonged to one neat tendency was already difficult to maintain.

And then came the awards.

Serouj Hovsepian’s “Dialogues Solitaires” won the Golden Apricot and also received the Gennadi Melkonian Special Prize. Ovsanna Gevorgyan’s “Paid Mourners” took the Silver Apricot. Sona Khachatryan’s “Relic” and Arthur Sahakyan’s “Together Alone” both received Special Mentions.

I ended up speaking more closely with three of the directors: Hovsepian, Khachatryan and Ayrapetyan. Those conversations also changed how I looked at some of the films.

“Dialogues Solitaires”

Second from left: Serouj Hovsepian.

There isn’t much action in “Dialogues Solitaires.” That is part of the point. The film stays with people talking, pausing, holding things back and sometimes finding a way to say them. Hovsepian shoots much of this in close-up, inside a 4:3 frame. I asked him where that visual decision came from.

“As the screenplay reached a more advanced stage, I began to develop a clearer sense of how the film should look and sound. From the beginning, I wanted to make an actor- and dialogue-driven film while keeping the mise-en-scène in the background. The presence of the actors, the importance of speech and the intimacy of the 4:3 aspect ratio naturally drew us toward their faces. This choice also influenced the casting. Beyond their talent and deep sensitivity, Vincent Pasdermadjian, Victorien Bonnet and Bleu Binet each have a distinctive, highly expressive face that stays with you. The film’s narrative relies on an emotional movement, on what the characters are experiencing internally. Unlike wider shots, the close-ups allow us to remain as close as possible to the characters.”

The film started somewhere personal. I was interested in what happens to that personal material once it has to become cinema rather than memory.

Hovsepian made a clear distinction between the two.

“Like many films, ‘Dialogues Solitaires’ began with a personal experience. But an intimate experience is not enough, on its own, to make a film. It has to be transformed, dramatized and enriched, while the characters need to be developed beyond the reality that inspired them. Throughout the writing process, then during the shoot and finally in the editing room, the film gradually took on a life of its own. Some scenes disappeared, not because they were too personal, but because the film had evolved and they no longer had the same place or necessity within it. What mattered was to tell a story, while preserving an emotional truth, depth and complexity.”

The title, “Dialogues Solitaires,” sounded slightly contradictory to me before the film. Afterward, less so. There are conversations, but often one person seems to need another person simply to finally speak to himself.

“What interested me in the film was exploring the relationship between two human beings through speech: what we say, what we conceal, but also what we wish we could express but cannot. Even though the characters talk to one another, they often seem to be speaking primarily to themselves, particularly in the second half of the film. All three of them, and especially Aren, played by Vincent Pasdermadjian, and Théo, played by Victorien Bonnet, carry something within them that needs to be expressed and set free. The presence of one becomes essential in allowing the other to finally speak. In a way, they become mirrors of one another. Each gives the other the space to put into words what he had until then experienced alone.”

For Hovsepian, the limited duration of a short film did not mean trying to fit more story into less time.

“What was essential for me to preserve in the film was its emotional complexity. This complexity emerges through the words, the actors’ performances, the silences between those words and the music composed by Hrayr Kalemkerian. All of this mattered far more to me than a complex plot, a succession of actions, or a mise-en-scène that draws attention to itself.”

A few days later, “Dialogues Solitaires” had the Golden Apricot. That mattered partly because Hovsepian had been on the other side of the festival for years, sitting in the audience.

“The fact that ‘Dialogues Solitaires’ was selected for the official Apricot Stone short film competition already meant a great deal to me. Golden Apricot is a festival I had attended for many years as a spectator, so returning years later with a film of my own was deeply moving in itself. The conversations I had with members of the audience after the screening also made me realize how important the representation of gay characters can be, particularly within the Armenian context. I would not describe ‘Dialogues Solitaires,’ strictly speaking, as a film about homosexuality. Rather, it forms an essential framework within which the characters’ emotions and relationships unfold. Seeing that this dimension, as well as the story and the film as a whole, resonated with so many members of the audience was deeply moving to me.”

What I found more interesting in that answer was that he did not stop at the award. He immediately moved to the audience, and specifically to what it meant for some Armenian viewers to see these characters on screen.

“Relic”

Sona Khachatryan.

My conversation with Sona Khachatryan began with a fairly simple question. “Relic” feels personal, so I asked whether something in the story came directly from her own life.

“‘Relic’ came from a feeling I had for a long time rather than from one specific event. I grew up hearing stories about miracles, curses, saints and people with unusual abilities. In Armenia, these stories exist almost naturally alongside everyday life, and as a child, I never questioned where reality ended and belief began. The story isn’t drawn from my own life directly, but it carries many fragments of my own memories. I remember how quickly a rumor could become accepted as truth simply because enough people believed it. That fascinated me, the way belief shapes reality and how communities create their own versions of the truth. I also think we’ve become so preoccupied with what can be measured, explained, and possessed that we’ve forgotten how to notice wonder. For me, miracles aren’t necessarily grand supernatural events. They can exist quietly in everyday life. ‘Relic’ is, in many ways, an invitation to look around more carefully, because sometimes the magic is already there. We’re simply too distracted or too skeptical to recognize it.”

That answer changes the way Minas can be read. He may have an extraordinary ability. Or perhaps what matters is that everyone around him believes something about that ability and then begins behaving accordingly. Khachatryan was much more interested in the second possibility.

“I never wanted Minas to feel like a hero or a mythical figure. What interested me wasn’t his gift itself, but what it reveals about the people around him. I’ve always been drawn to characters who don’t quite fit into the world they’re born into. I think many of us know what it feels like to be misunderstood or defined by something others see in us. Minas carries something extraordinary, but emotionally, he’s simply someone looking for acceptance and human connection. His vulnerability was much more important to me than his ability. I was interested in how the very same person can become a source of hope for some people and fear for others without changing at all. In the end, the film says as much about the community as it does about Minas.”

One thing “Relic” does not do is announce whenever it is crossing from ordinary reality into something more mysterious. Khachatryan did not really see a border there in the first place.

“I never thought of the magical elements as something separate from reality. We avoided making the supernatural feel spectacular because I wanted it to emerge naturally from ordinary life. When the world feels authentic, even the smallest impossible moment can feel believable. I’m also drawn to films that trust their audience and leave room for mystery. I didn’t want to explain everything or give definitive answers. I wanted viewers to experience the story through belief, doubt, curiosity and emotion. Sometimes mystery can tell us more than certainty.”

Khachatryan came to “Relic” from documentary filmmaking, and you can hear that background when she talks about the shoot.

“Documentary changed the way I look at people, and I don’t think I’ll ever lose that. It taught me to observe before trying to control anything. Even though ‘Relic’ is fiction, I wanted the world to feel lived in rather than constructed. We worked with many local residents instead of professional actors, and I tried to stay open to unexpected moments. I enjoy directing fiction because it allows me to build a world, but I still carry a documentary mindset onto set.” 

“Relic” left the festival with a Special Mention.

“Lola”

First photo, from left: Tamara Ayrapetyan and Abbas Souzian. Second photo, from left: Tamara Ayrapetyan.

With Tamara Ayrapetyan, I started somewhere else entirely. Editing. It is unusually visible in “Lola,” and Ayrapetyan edited the film herself. I asked whether her route into cinema had actually started there. It had. Very early.

“My career in film began with editing. When I got my first computer at 12, I quickly found an editing program and became completely engrossed. As an adult, this led me to the profession, even though I was self-taught. Editing your own film is no easy task, because while on work projects you’re arguing with the director or the cameraman while sitting alone at the computer, here you only have to swear at your own reflection. The film itself is musical, so I couldn’t allow myself to make it without properly placed accents and rhythm, even when no one is dancing or singing in the frame. How it turned out is up to the viewer to judge.”

Arguing with her own reflection is probably a better introduction to Ayrapetyan than a formal biography would be. “Lola” is her first film as a director, and its subject is not exactly light. But she does not talk about making it with the seriousness that sometimes surrounds a debut film dealing with grief. The story itself was not autobiographical.

“The central theme was supposed to be love. I quickly abandoned the idea of ​​romantic love. I have a brother, and the topic of sibling love is very interesting to me and sometimes seems less explored, so I settled on that.”

Dance does much of the work that dialogue cannot.

“Dance is one of my favorite art forms. I could never take it up myself because of health reasons, so perhaps that’s why its prohibition and inaccessibility fascinate me even more. And I think dance works best for Lola’s story. Because the release of suppressed emotions, grief and inner struggles comes through physical action, it literally pushes all the pain out.”

But the part of our conversation I found most revealing was about language. Armenian and Russian both exist inside “Lola.” Ayrapetyan herself grew up in Russia in an Armenian family, and she used the term “third culture kid” when explaining what this meant for the film.

“The use of two languages in the film is due to a common situation when the culture in the family differs from the culture outside the home. ‘Third culture kid’ is a concept that applies to many on our team, and we wanted to reflect this versatility in the film. We are made up of fragments of different cultural traditions, like a kaleidoscope, a puzzle or a collage. I wanted to show the main character’s eternal quest to assemble the various fragments of her consciousness into a coherent picture, especially after a tragedy abruptly breaks one of the threads that held everything together.”

I asked what actually changed when, after years of other work in cinema, she finally became the director. 

“I was very happy and terrified. I’m a very attentive person, noticing every detail, the mood of the people around me and remembering who to talk to and how. I think this part of my anxious personality helped me when I first found myself in the director’s chair. All my years of work and experience before this led me to directing, simply because I want and always wanted to be a director. There was no other option.”

What “Apricot Stone” looked like this year

I don’t think these 10 films need to add up to a thesis about Armenian cinema. Actually, I prefer that they don’t.

A teenager caught between TikTok and a family tradition of professional mourning. An elderly man alone in a house after 50 years of marriage. A young man trying to live with the psychological aftermath of war. A child who may or may not be able to heal people. Two men speaking around things that have been difficult to say. A dancer trying to find somewhere for grief to go.

Put next to each other, they don’t form a movement. They don’t even always seem to be asking the same questions. That was what made the section worth following.

“Apricot Stone” was small enough that these differences stayed visible. The films did not have to stand in for Armenian cinema as a whole, or for a generation, or for some neat idea about what Armenian filmmakers are concerned with right now. “Apricot Stone” was a reminder to spend some time looking at what is being made closer to home as well.

Photos courtesy of Mojtaba Mortazavi.