BARS MEDIA

Bars Media Documentary Film Studio was established in 1993 by Vardan Hovhannisyan, who began his career as a frontline-filmmaker covering hotspots in the former Soviet Union. Bars Media was one of the first independent film companies in Armenia,  which specializes in making documentaries about human stories, culture, history and other social issues.

Studio’s documentaries have been broadcast on BBC-Storyville(UK), ARTE(France-Germany), WDR(Germany), PBS(US), NHK(Japan), YLE(Finland) and on many other international channels.  Located in Armenia, the studio is uniquely positioned at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and is thus able to cover a wide range of stories from the region. It is a dynamic studio, with 12 people who are responsible for all stages of documentary filmmaking, starting from early research all the way through post-production.

Bars Media Studio’s documentary “A Story of People in War and Peace” is a powerful, personal understanding of the human costs of war. The film has won over 20 other awards including the FIPRESCI prize, the Best Documentary Filmmaker Award at Tribeca Film Festival (US, 2007), the Audience Award at Trieste Film Festival (Italy, 2007), the Special Mention Award at the ZagrebDox Film Festival (Croatia, 2007) and Docaviv Film Festival (Israel, 2007), and was nominated for the Joris Ivens award at IDFA (The Netherlands, 2006). The film was shown on the BBC, ARTE WDR, YLE and PBS.

Bars Media also produced the award-winning documentary “The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia”, an international co-production with NHK, ITVS, YLE, SVT and TVP. The film tells the story of two of Armenia’s most celebrated tightrope dancers, both in their late seventies, who must search for an apprentice to take over this ancient art form, or face having it lost forever. The film was awarded The Best Armenian Film Award at the Golden Apricot International Film Festival (Armenia, 2010), Grand Prix at XIX International Festival of Ethnological Films (Serbia, 2010) and others.  The film was also included in official screening list of IDFA (The Netherlands, 2009), Goteborg International Film Festival (Sweden, 2010).

Bars Media’s next documentary, or more accurately, “Donkeymentary” is a humorous film about Lamu Island in Kenya, a place with 24,000 people, 6,000 donkeys, 2 cars, and a donkey racing champion who has no donkey of his own.  A version of the film was shown on ARTE, and the Director’s has circulated in several festivals in 2012.

In 2015 studio completed the “One, Two, Three…“, a documentary about an aging group of people living in Yerevan, Armenia, who form an amateur dance troupe and find hope, happiness, and the strength to live. The film is Armenian/German/Norwegian co-production. The film has its National Premiere at Golden Apricot IFF 2016 and won Best Armenian Documentary Film Award.

Bars Media is also developing documentary films in Africa, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world. In collaboration with Public TV of Armenia (H1), the studio has been producing a hosted documentary series called “Mysteries of Armenia” for the past two years and now has just started another documentary series about the army called “My Army”.

Movies in our catalog