Tamara Stepanyan
Directing
Biography
Tamara Stepanyan was born in Armenia. During the breakdown of the Soviet Union, she moved to Lebanon with her parents in 1994, at a time when the country was coming out of the Civil War. After studying and working in Lebanon she moved recently to France where she is starting to write her first feature fiction script. In 2005 she graduated from the Lebanese American University (LAU) having studied in Communication Arts with an emphasis in Radio/TV/Film. Stepanyan made a number of films while in university including THE NEEDLE (2004) and THE LAST STATION (2005), and participated in film workshops in South Korea, Asian Film Academy as part of the Busan International Film Festival in 2007 and in Denmark, an exchange program in Den Danske Filmskole in 2012. In 2007 she travelled to Sudan and shot a 30 episode documentary for television about the Sudanese culture and food and traditions. Her works include My Beirut, a video/photo/audio installation that was part of Badguer I in 2009. LITTLE STONES a short documentary, FEBRUARY 19 a short narrative fiction won the Best Fiction Film Award at the Lebanese Film Festival. EMBERS is Stepanyan’s latest film that recently won the Best Documentary Award at the Busan International Film Festival.
Known For
Céline arrives in Armenia for the first time to legalize the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he has lied to her, that he fought in the war, usurped his identity, and that his former friends consider him a deserter.
In the Land of Arto
Only women, children and old people live in this Armenian village, while the men work in Russia. A life with a rhythm of its own, an independent daily life marked nonetheless by exile.
Village of Women
A tender posthumous letter to Tamara’s father, who was a film actor in Soviet Armenia. She already watched him on TV as a child before later establishing herself as a filmmaker. A captivating sleepwalk through the landscapes of Armenian film history.
My Armenian Phantoms
Marseille, 2014. Dozens of Armenian asylum seekers trying to survive while waiting for their application to be considered. They left behind them a country whose people have settled around the world for over a hundred years ... A country all described as desert, abandoned by its inhabitants, emptied of its life. Forced stillness, impotence, they live in an in-between space: between two countries, between two lives. In a time and abstract space, made of nothing, where their life escapes them completely. By the shore, they float in limbo.
Those from the Shore
With EMBERS, Tamara Stepanyan’s first feature-length documentary, the director seeks to honour the memory of her late grandmother, whom she was named after. Stepanyan visits the elder Tamara’s hometown in Armenia, where she spends time with her grandmother’s circle of friends, who discuss their memories of daily life with Tamara, bringing to light their ideological and political viewpoints in the process. As the conversations progress, a dialogue emerges between past and present – between the Tamara of today and the Tamara of two generations ago, whose life was shaped by her experiences during World War II. Despite the absence of the film’s central subject, her presence is deeply felt through her impact on those who survived her. Stepanyan’s mourning the loss of someone close to her heart is acutely apparent; here, she faces down that sorrow with a bright tribute to a wonderful woman.
Embers
After the passing of her grandmother, a businessman's daughter goes back to her birthplace. After a little while, she receives the visit of her former classmates but their reunion take an unexpected turn. The guests tells her that they need some money to cover the murder they've committed.
Bad Bad Winter
Children are playing war games.
Khagher
Two lovers encounter in a train, separated by a wall, on February the 19th.