ARTAVAZD PELESHYAN

Armenian director Artavazd Peleshyan is one of the most visionary artists to have emerged from the Soviet Union, but like several of his friends making cinema in the thenexisting republics of the South Caucasus, he struggled to work uninterrupted or breach the margins of canonised world film history. When he embarked on his career during the early 1960s, his near-wordless black-and-white films were way ahead of their time in blending the reality levels of documentary archive and poetic fiction. Their shortness of length and blurring of categories, though, reinforced their status as outliers, resistant to being co-opted and stripped of their arcane mystery by crass marketforces, and unlikely candidates for mainstream popularity. Peleshyan has a near-cult core of devotees, and few initiated into the singular, intuitive strangeness of his montage experiments would argue with the evaluation of his contemporary, Georgian-Armenian maverick Sergei Parajanov, that he’s one of cinema’s rare ‘authentic geniuses’. For all that, his name is still rarely heard beyond cinephile circles.

DIFF IS DELIGHTED TO WELCOME MR PELESHYAN TO DISCUSS HIS WORK WITH FILMMAKER TADHG O'SULLIVAN

Supported by Hon. Consulate Republic of Armenia

The Seasons

INFO: Sat 4 Mar / Light House 1 /

16:00 / 29 mins

DIRECTOR: Artavazd Peleshyan

COUNTRY: Armenia

Legendary Armenian filmmaker Artavazd Peleshyan’s avantgarde work has been championed by many of his peers including Jean-Luc Goddard. Collaborating with acclaimed cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov, Peleshyan documents the experiences of an isolated and small farming community as they battle against the harshest elements of nature. It captures the human spirit of resilience as workers battle against rushing water, move to the spring mountains with their herds, and fight for survival in wind and snow.

La Nature

INFO: Sat 4 Mar / Light House 1

/ 14:00 / 64 mins

DIRECTOR: Artavazd Peleshyan

COUNTRY: Armenia

The force of nature is captured to unique and impressive effect in Artavazd Peleshyan’s homage to its power. To the surprise and delight of film lovers, the filmmaker presented this title in 2020, aged 82 and more than two decades after his previous film. Made up of found footage, he uses his distinct techniques to bring home the frailty of humanity in the face of nature at its most powerful, be it massive floods, hurricanes or volcanic eruptions.