ARAIK ZULALIAN
ARTIST BIO
Araik Zulalian is a Russian-Armenian-American director of film and animation, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A graduate of a university in St. Petersburg, he began his career in Armenian television before moving into independent and grant-funded filmmaking. Over three years building a new life in the US, he has developed documentary and animation work using a proprietary hybrid stop-motion/photographic compositing methodology, earning recognition at the Josiah Media Festival and the Texas Short Film Festival. He is currently developing three projects in the US and serves as executive director of the Кинолес international short film festival. He is also a member of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.
ARTIST PROJECT INFO
Recommendation is a feature-length documentary essay following a filmmaker's third year in the United States, seen through the lens of an immigrant caught mid-process—of paperwork, of belonging, of becoming someone new. Structured around the 10 criteria of the EB-1A "extraordinary ability" visa, the film sets cold bureaucratic language against intimate footage of churches, workplaces, neighbors, and newcomers, and against the filmmaker's own search for a place in this world. As he gathers recommendation letters from friends, strangers, and near-strangers in hopes of a green card, the film becomes a document of longing, dislocation, and quiet persistence.
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