Artavazd Peleshian is an Armenian director of essay films and documentaries. Creator of the “distange montage,” Peleshian removed the boundaries of feature and documentary films, editing both as a real poetic unity. Even his student works shot at VGIK, the oldest film school in Moscow, Russia, were awarded numerous prizes, and he gained recognition among filmmakers. Alongside his very successful solo career, which made him one of the key Soviet documentarians, Peleshian was invited to direct archive footage by such masters as Lev Kulidzhanov for Zvyozdnaya minuta (1972) and Andrey Konchalovskiy for Siberiada (1979). Peleshian is the author of a range of theoretical works, including his 1988 book Moyo kino (My Cinema).
