Հայերեն
Elegy in Light
Elegy in Light, shot on super 8mm film at the funeral of Catholicos Vazgen I, Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians, depicts an ancient and rarely seen rite of the Armenian Church with the music of monastic ritual chant and minimalist sound design: an ethnographic art film described by one viewer as “a psychedelic trip into medieval times.” The film is an impressionistic meditation on death, life and the fragmentary way we remember the past. The medium of 8mm film, with its unique visual characteristics, becomes a metaphor for memory and for the soul itself; a cinematic memorial made from the substances of time and light.
Zareh Tjeknavorian
Zareh Tjeknavorian was born into a family of musicians and grew up in Tehran, London, Frankfurt, Paris and New York. After graduating from New York University with a degree in Film, Zareh moved to Armenia where he produced and directed Enemy of the People, an oral history of the Stalin Terror based on over 200 interviews. The acclaimed documentary was broadcast on PBS in the United States and was noted by National Geographic Magazine as one of three must-see films about Armenia. Zareh has since produced a growing body of short and long-form films that seek to bring the stories of some of the region՚s most ancient and little-known peoples to the world.
Select filmography
2016 – Elegy in Light
2008 – Embers of the Sun
2007 – Tigranakert: An Armenian Odyssey
2005 – Credo (producer)
2003 – Khachaturian (associate producer)
1998 – Enemy of the People