Hovhannes Ishkhanyan’s film wins Silver Dove Award at DOK Leipzig Film Festival

The world premiere of the documentary film by Armenian director Hovhannes Ishkhanyan, ‘Beauty and the Lawyer’, took place at the 66th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, held from October 8 to 15.

The film was awarded the second Silver Dove Award as the best feature-length documentary. The film was nominated for three more awards.

“I dedicate the Silver Dove for the best documentary of the Leipzig Festival to the strong people of Artsakh, who were starved by the Aliyev regime of Azerbaijan and who survived the 9-month blockade without food and medicine; there were also those who died of hunger. And I dedicate it, in particular, to Vagif Khachatryan, who was abducted from a Red Cross car and who is now being held in a Baku prison in a helpless state,” Ishkhanyan said in his speech.

He expressed confidence that “the dignity of Armenians and peoples with a similar fate will be restored, justice will prevail sooner or later, and this identity crisis will be overcome.”