DOC LA. Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival

Presented by the esteemed Parajanov-Vartanov Institute, DOC LA - Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival - will screen and award outstanding films by students, emerging auteurs, and established masters to give Angelenos an opportunity to see great examples of World and American cinema. DOC LA furthers the mission of the annual Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Awards established in 2010.

While the festival’s focus is documentary cinema, we will program films of any genre (including animation, experimental, and music videos) whenever we discover unique or charming work. We are also enthusiastic about unusual, strange and unclassifiable films since the institute that presents the festival is named after the renowned nonconformists Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937-2009), who overcame censorship, persecution and low budgets, and earned praise for their daring point of view from many of cinema’s greatest luminaries, such as Godard, Coppola and Tarkovsky, and inspired the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga.

The festival’s programmer is their disciple and UCLA alum Martiros Vartanov, who has served as a curator and juror at festivals in Busan and Beverly Hills and worked on the restoration of the The Color of Pomegranates selected for Festival de Cannes. He also presents the institute's and the festival's annual awards whose recipients include Academy Award ® winning director Martin Scorsese, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, French cinema icon Jean Vigo, Oscar ® winning actresses Emma Thompson, Marion Cotillard, Susan Sarandon and Cate Blanchett, as well as Jeff Bridges, Usher, Emilio Rivera, Ice-T, Billy Baldwin, Alfred Molina, Angela Bassett, Mark Ruffalo, and the Grammy-winning rock band System Of A Down.