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, especially those that our city’s other important festivals overlook. We want Angelinos to have an opportunity to see great examples of World and American cinema, and to bring the students and the master filmmakers together to inspire and learn from one another. DOC LA furthers the mission of the annual Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Awards established in 2010.

DOC LA doesn’t require a Los Angeles premiere for short films, but we prefer it for features. And, although the festival’s focus is documentary and short cinema, we will program films of any genre and length whenever we discover unique or charming work. We are also enthusiastic about unusual, strange and unclassifiable films since the festival presenting institute 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 some of cinema’s greatest luminaries.

The festival’s programmer is their disciple and UCLA alumnus 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 annual awards which have honored such icons as the Academy Award ® winning director Martin Scorsese, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, French cinema icon Jean Vigo, Oscar ® winning actresses Emma Thompson and Marion Cotillard, as well as Mark Ruffalo, Alfred Molina, Angela Bassett, and the Grammy-winning rock band System Of A Down.