DOC LA 

Los Angeles
Documentary Film
Festival

DOC LA — Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival — organized by the esteemed Parajanov-Vartanov Institute, will screen and award outstanding films by students, emerging filmmakers, and established masters of American and World cinema. DOC LA furthers the mission of the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Awards established in 2010.

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While the festival's focus is documentary cinema, we program films of any genre (including animation, experimental, and music videos) whenever we discover unique or charming work. We are also enthusiastic about 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.

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DOC LA programmer is their disciple and UCLA alum Martiros M. Vartanov who's served as a curator and juror at festivals in Busan and Los Angeles, and worked on the restoration of the masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates selected for Festival de Cannes. He also presents the institute's and the festival's awards whose honorees include Academy Award ® winning director Martin Scorsese, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, French cinema icon Jean Vigo, as well as Werner Herzog, Usher, Angela Bassett, Emilio Rivera, Mark Ruffalo, Oscar ® winners Emma Thompson, Cate Blanchett, and Jeff Bridges, and Grammy-winning rock band System Of A Down.