Melanya Hamasyan is a director and screenwriter from Gyumri, Armenia. She has a Master’s degree in film directing from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague.  Previous to pursuing cinema, she studied photography and public art at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she obtained her Bachelor’s degree.  

Her work spanning documentary and fiction, is often heterogeneous in style and genre.  Thematically, her films explore another boundary-namely how people relate and reconcile their everyday reality with that of the subconscious- engaging with the elusive yet expressive landscapes of dreams, memories and beliefs.  Her recent short film, Conversations and Dreams, a Czech-Armenian co-production is set to have its international premiere in Doclisboa International Film Festival in Lisbon, Portugal in October, 2025. Hamasyan is also developing her first feature, Poetics of Belonging, an Armenian-American co-production.