Armenians in Film at Lincoln Center 2025

Michael Aloyan was born and raised in Glendale, CA. The son of Armenian immigrants, his father was a graphic designer and his mother was a social worker (an aspiring concert pianist back home). Enthralled with art from a young age, Aloyan spent most of his youth immersed in painting and sculpting. He soon fell in love with filmmaking and started making stop-motion animated movies with his dad's Hi-8 camera at the age of eight. With Aloyan writing the scripts and serving as character artist, he and his father built the clay puppets and miniature sets together.

For his thirteenth birthday his parents bought him his own camera and that summer, he gathered his friends and made a 45-minute film. Aloyan rented out a local theater and charged $5 for admission, screening to a sold-out audience. He took the profits and invested them into making another film over the following school year. His younger brother, Arman Aloyan, began composing the score to all of his films. The summer after he graduated high school, Aloyan wrote "String," an original TV pilot that he sold to 20th Century Fox Television before his 20th birthday.

As an MFA Directing student at UCLA, he wrote a letter to actor Karren Karagulian (Anora, Tangerine) asking him to star in a short film called "This Land" (2019), in which he wrote the lead role for Karren. Admiring the young filmmaker's ambition and persistence, Karagulian said yes. The two would go on to make another film together called "Carnivore" (2023), Aloyan's most personal film to date, that premiered in competition at the Golden Apricot International Film Festival and screened in competition at the Oscar-qualifying LA Shorts.

Aloyan has been a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, Academy Nicholl Fellowship, Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop, Disney/ABC Writing Program, ATX Television Festival, and his recent work "The Dive" was a featured script on The Black List, after which it sold to AMC Studios. He is currently working on his feature film debut.

Moris Amiryan is an Armenian-Russian filmmaker, currently pursuing a master's degree in Beijing, China. He is a graduate of the Russian State University of Cinematography and the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography.

Born in 1994 in the village of Karby, near Yerevan, he moved to the town of Ashtarak at the age of six. He served in the Armenian Armed Forces from 2016 to 2018.

His filmography includes five short films: The Turtle (2024), Pigeon Lifetime (2023), Butterfly (2022), The Catch (2021), and Villainy (2019).

Lilit Babayan is an Armenian filmmaker and screenwriter. She studied at the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography. Her latest short film, “Time Out,” has been selected for international screenings. In 2025, she participated in a European film workshop to further develop her upcoming project.

Mano Baghjajian is an Armenian-American documentary filmmaker, journalist and storyteller. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Mano earned his bahcelors' degree at California State University Northridge, where he majored in Journalism and minored in Popular Culture Studies. Mano then moved to New York City in 2022 to attend graduate school at New York University. He graduated from NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute's prestigious News and Documentary program with a Masters of Arts in Journalism. Endless Exile was developed as Mano's thesis project and has now morphed into his debut documentary short film.

Joe Penney is a filmmaker, photographer, and journalist whose work aims at a deeper understanding of our shared human experiences. Based between New York and Lagos, Nigeria, he directs films that blend beautiful imagery, cinematic storytelling with documentary realism, often examining how people navigate belonging, creativity, and change across borders and cultures. His debut documentary, “Sun of the Soil: The Story of Mansa Musa,” reimagines the legacy of history and myth of a 14th century Malian king through the eyes of a contemporary artist, and streamed on Netflix. His reporting and photography have appeared in Reuters, The New York Times, Le Monde, and more.

Tigran Tovmasian is an Armenian filmmaker and actor based in Australia. He began his career as an actor, training and working across Australia, the U.S., and Europe. With no formal film school background, he stepped behind the camera driven by a desire to tell personal, emotionally grounded stories. He made his directorial debut with The Circus Lion, a drama exploring themes of identity, depression, and belonging. Alongside his work in film, Tigran teaches acting in Sydney, Australia, and helps his students produce their own short films.

Vache Tovmasyan is an Armenian actor, comedian, writer, and producer, celebrated for his versatility and dynamic performances. Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Tovmasyan began his career in entertainment in 2005. He gained national recognition through the creation and performance in the sketch comedy show 32 Atam (32 Teeth) and later cocreated the stand-up comedy TV show Vitamin Club, which aired on Shant TV until 2015. Tovmasyan's international acclaim was solidified with his portrayal of Garnik in Sean Baker's 2024 film Anora. The film premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d'Or, and later secured five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Tovmasyan's performance contributed to the film's nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.