2026 SR Socially Relevant Film Festival

This film will be screened on Wednesday, March 11th at the Lenfest Center for the Arts (615 West 129th Street) and will feature a Q&A with actors Eric Francès & Nora Armani.

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ángel Flores, a promising Spanish actor returns to Spain to fulfill the last dying wish of his theatre master Miguel Lama. Ten years earlier, as a result of his personal tragedy, Ángel had escaped to Mexico where he had become a TV soap star. Miguel Lama’s last wish for Ángel is to travel to a remote monastery up in the mountains of Northern Spain and there to read each page of Dostoyevsky’s thousand-page-novel The Brothers Karamazov three times, then to come to his graveside in the monastery cemetery every night to tell him about the progress made in reading the novel. This mysterious experience reveals the secret of Ángel’s tragedy and helps him understand the role of reading in healing inner personal traumas. Ángel also learns that no dictator in the East, West, South or North who destroys his own people and neighbors will be able to eliminate the importance of authentic literature as the cornerstone of humanity.

This film will be screened on Sunday, March 15th at Cinema Village (22 E 12th Street).

An evocative journey through the forgotten world of Armenian cinema. Sparked by conversations with her late father, renowned Armenian actor Vigen Stepanyan, Tamara Stepanyan creates this beautiful documentary that captures not just Soviet Armenian cinema, but the enduring soul of Armemian storytelling. My Armenian Phantom is Armenia's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Academy Awards. The film, which premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival, is a personal tribute to her late father, actor Vigen Stepanyan.

This film will be screened on Sunday, March 15th at Cinema Village (22 E 12th Street).

A film about a man who despite the many wonderful moments and innocent pleasures he has during the day (prayer, liturgy, lessons, singing, reading, painting), is in search of a heavenly homeland. No one and nothing can fill the emptiness and longing he feels.

This film will be screened on Sunday, March 15th at Cinema Village (22 E 12th Street).

The film explores cultural memory through the landscape and examines our shifting ideas of homeland from the perspective of someone who grew up in the UK curious about her Armenian family.