Mes fantômes arméniens

As a child, Tamara Stepanyan came across Armenian cinema on television in the living room with the whole family. Her mother was a virtuoso cellist, her father a famous actor from the 1970s onwards: Vigen Stepanyan often acted in the films that Tamara watched on TV. Taking this first astonishing discovery as its starting point, the film describes growing up in an artistic, critical family in the years in which the Soviet Union was disintegrating. The family emigrates to Lebanon, gains distance, suffers and yearns; Tamara studies directing.

With selected film excerpts from Armenia’s cinematic legacy ranging from Sergei Parajanov to Artavazd Peleshyan and far beyond, she approaches both her own path as a woman as well as to film. She allows her account to transcend the personal and shows the patterns and idiosyncrasies of the largely unknown (Soviet) Armenian cinema by linking together family videos and film historical footage. Her fourth feature-length work begins as an invitation au voyage for the audience and ultimately becomes a tender, intimate dialogue with her father, who died in 2020. “Do you remember, Dad?” The cardiogram of a utopia. A séance. (Gary Vanisian, Barbara Wurm)

Tamara Stepanyan, born in 1982 in Yerevan. She and her parents moved to Lebanon in the early 1990s and she continued her studies at the National Film School of Denmark. She now lives in France and is considered one of the new voices of contemporary Armenian cinema. Her long-feature debut, Embers (2012), premiered at the Busan International Film Festival. Those from the Shore (2016) and Village of Women (2019) participated in and were awarded at numerous international festivals. She is currently in post-production on her first fiction film, Save the Dead, shot in Armenia.

Director Tamara Stepanyan. Screenplay Tamara Stepanyan, Jean-Christophe Ferrari. Editing Olivier Ferrari. Music Cynthia Zaven. Sound Design Jocelyn Robert. Producers Céline Loiseau, Alice Baldo, Tamara Stepanyan. Executive Producers Céline Loiseau, Karina Simonyan. Production companies TS Productions (Paris, France), Visan (Yerevan, Armenia). With Vigen Stepanyan.

World sales Cinephil

Films: 2010: Petites pierres / Little Stones (short film). 2011: 19 février / 19th of February. 2012: Embers. 2016: Ceux du rivage / Those From the Shore. 2019: Village des femmes / Village of Women. 2025: Mes fantômes arméniens / My Armenian Phantoms.