COME AGAIN, GRANDPA

Armenia, 2019, 37’
Director and Writer: Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Cinematographer: Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Producer: Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Editor: Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Sound: Rafayel Ishkhanyan
Production Company: Chai Khana

The once warm relations between a boy and his grandfather have become more strained over the past several years. Harut Khachatryan, a five-time married 78-year-old, lives in a large house he built himself in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. He works day and night and struggles to convince his grandson, Hovhannes Ishkhanyan, to help him. Hovhannes was once his shadow, but the two have grown apart and he now ignores his grandfather. Yet after years of estrangement, Hovhannes – now a grown man and a filmmaker – decides to try and repair his relationship with his grandfather. He begins to spend time with Harut to learn about his life, the history of his family, and to clarify what caused their estrangement.

HOVHANNES ISHKHANYAN

Born in 1988 in Yerevan, Hovhannes Ishkhanyan is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He graduated from the Programming Department of the European Regional Academy and afterward the Journalism Department of the Georgian Public Relations Institute. He has worked for several Armenian newspapers and the Pink Armenia human rights organization, while also collaborating with Chai Khana and Voice of America and having authored a short stories collection called The Day of Discharge. His films tackle the Stalinist repressions, human rights, migration, public, social, political, and artistic issues. Currently, he is working on his first feature-length documentary The Beauty and the Lawyer.

Filmography

Family Album (2014), Listen To Me: Untold Stories Beyond Hatred (scriptwriter, 2016), An Incomplete Portrait of Ilik (2018), A Chronicle of Exes (co-director, 2018), Come Again, Grandpa (2019), Before the Abroad (2020), Pause, Passerby, Pause (2020), The Graduate (2020), The Chemistry of Sevaberd (2020), The Art of Sleeping (2020).