Beauty and the Lawyer

Filmstill Beauty and the Lawyer

Beauty and the Lawyer

Beauty and the Lawyer
Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
International Competition Documentary Film
Documentary Film
Armenia,
France
2023
105 minutes
Armenian
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English
German SDH subtitles
World premiere

The film opens with the wedding of Garik and Hasmik and ends with a decorated tree for their son’s first Christmas in the new house that his father built himself. Between these fixed points of middle-class family life, nothing is as heteronormative as this bracket and above all the political and religious mainstream in Armenia would lead one to expect.

Hasmik is a lawyer who fights for LGBTQIA+ rights, her husband appears in the media as drag performer Carabina, does sex work and makes his life in a queer-phobic environment the subject of an autobiographical theatre performance. The film, which evolved out of close friendship and is always one step behind the wild energy of Garik/Carabina, takes a precarious, raw, but also utopian-tinted look at current social struggles. The longing for normality, emancipation and responsibility find themselves exposed – sometimes powerless and unprotected – to violent defamation. TV images show the zeal behind the attempted construction of homosexual and trans persons as “Un-Armenian.” Meanwhile Carabina, in a moment of rest from plastering the house, trowel in hand, plays a song by Charles Aznavour, whose family came from Armenia – “What Makes a Man?”


Jan Künemund

Screenings & Tickets DOK Leipzig Logo

10.10.
#213
CineStar 2
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
10.10.2023
CineStar 2
#213
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
Calendar
12.10.
#421
CineStar 4
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
12.10.2023
CineStar 4
#421
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
Calendar
13.10.
#533
CineStar 5
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
13.10.2023
CineStar 5
#533
Beauty and the Lawyer
During Checkout you can apply discounts, your accreditation or season passes
Calendar

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Cinematographer
Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Editor
Wei-Yuan Song
Producer
Jean-Marie Gigon
Co-Producer
Hovhannes Ishkhanyan
Sound Design
Thomas Fourel

Contact DOK Leipzig Logo

Main Contact
Nominated for Silver Dove, Prize of the Interreligious Jury, FIPRESCI Prize, MDR Film Prize