Hakob Melkonyan

Biography

HAKOB MELKONYAN Born in 1984 in Armenia. Since 2009 he has been living between France and Armenia. His studies at the University of Cinema and Theatre in Yerevan (2001-2005) and then at the University of Cinema and Television in Munich (2006-2009) gave him the necessary distance from the history of his country, which he now feels ready to return to. In 2010, he took part in a GREC (Groupe de Recherches et d'Essais Cinématographiques) writing workshop with his short film project "Le Mur blanc". His instructor was French director of photography Caroline Champetier. After directing a number of 52-minute documentaries for France Télévisions, in 2015 he wrote and directed his first feature-length documentary "L'Arbre", about the Armenian Genocide. It is an Armenian, French and Turkish co-production. The film was screened in seven countries and won the Grand Prize at the Vues Du Monde Festival in Montreal in 2016. In 2020 he wrote and directed his second feature-length documentary, "Blocus", about an Armenian village. For thirty years, its inhabitants have been trying to survive the war on the border between Azeris and Armenians. It is a Franco-Armenian co-production. This film was developed during DOCMONDE's writing residency in 2018 and made as part of the Lumière du Monde collection. In 2023 he wrote and directed his third feature-length documentary, "Nous étions frères". This film is the 3rd in a trilogy about Armenia after "L'Arbre", and "Blocus", the first about the genocide and the second about the border war with Azerbaijan. In this film, the director moves back and forth through time, from the Second World War, when the peoples of the USSR were defending Europe against barbarism, to the present day, when they are killing each other. After this personal trilogy, now he is working on his first feature film “Au milieu de nulle part” which is a war drama. Therefore, he was the winner of the “From Short to Feature” screenplay training in the summer of 2021, offered by FEMIS, and in the autumn of 2022, he participated in a cinema writing residency at ALCA Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in Chalet Mauriac.