YEREVAN–The award winning documentary, “The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia” earned its latest acclaim last week at the 39th Dance on Camera Film Festival in New York, where it secured the “The Best Documentary” award for its short story about the dying art of tightrope dancers in Armenia.
Produced by Bars Media, “The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia” aired on PBS on October 17, 2010. It is now also available on the iTunes store for download [iTunes Link].
The film, which aired on PBS on Sunday, October 17, 2010, is the acclaimed work of two young filmmakers–Inna Sahakyan and Arman Yeritsyan. It is a warm, thoughtful, and beautifully-shot story about the dying art of tightrope dancers. It explores the art’s disappearance in Armenia through the story of an orphan boy, who is the last student of tightrope dancing, and his old and marginalized instructors, who are trying to save their beloved art.
Both Sahakyan and Yeritsyan have produced several documentaries over the last decade. Sahakyan has directed more than 10 social documentaries for Armenian television and worked as assistant director on “A Story of People in War and Peace.” Yeritsyan has directed a number of award-winning documentaries including,” Under the Open Sky” and “Goodbye Fellini.”
Though a local story that unfolds in the small country of Armenia, The Last Tightrope Dancer tells a universal tale, exploring the loss of tradition and the shift of social values in the face of globalization.
The film has won the best documentary award at ten different international film festivals and has been screened in a number of European festivals, including the IDFA in Amsterdam, the Goteborg International Film Festival in Sweden, the Euganea Film Festival in Italy, the DOK Leipzig 53rd International Film Festival and FilmFest Humburg in Germany. It has also been broadcast on Japanese, Swedish, Polish and Finish public television.
Below are the film’s recent awards:
- Best Armenian Film, 7th Golden Apricot International Film Festival (Yerevan, Armenia)
- The Grand Prix, 7th International Women’s Film Festival (Yerevan, Armenia)
- The Grand Prix, 19th International Festival of Ethnological Films (Belgrade, Serbia)
- Best Documentary, Listapad International Film Festival (Minsk, Belorussia)
- Best Documentary, 5th Pomegranate Film Festival (Toronto, Canada)
- Best Feature Length Documentary, Russia Documentary Film Festival (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- Special Award for Search of Original Scenario of Nonfiction Film (Yekaterinburg, Russia)
- Special Jury Award at Gdansk International Doc Film Festival (Gdansk, Poland)
