Areg & Manushak
Areg & Manushak is a documentary-style music film forming part of project The Bird of a Thousand Voices. Built around Hamasyan’s love duet of longing voices, the film follows the composer through contemporary Armenia, tracing the living roots of an ancient myth within today’s cultural landscape. Fiction and reality begin to overlap, as music becomes a bridge between manuscript and memory.
manuscripts awakened in real time
The music film Areg & Manushak begins inside the Matenadaran manuscript archive in Yerevan. In the dim corridors of this research institute, Hamasyan studies medieval Armenian manuscripts under the guidance of scholar Arusyak Tamrazian. Within a high-security vault, ancient pages reveal illustrations of anthropomorphic birds - symbols crafted by monks to encode spiritual meaning. In this encounter, music reconnects with its narrative origin.
From the archive, the film shifts to the open landscape of southern Armenia. Inspired by these images, Hamasyan plays Areg and Manushak; a song about a love duet without words. A grand piano is transported by helicopter to a mountain near Kruzup, where the musicians and audience gather for a live performance at altitude. The act is both intimate and monumental: a contemporary ritual and statement staged in direct dialogue with people, land, mountain and sky.
The film observes the Armenian composer in his concentration to manuscripts, to place, to history. The contrast between the enclosed archive and the vast mountain plateau mirrors the project’s broader structure: myth moving between preservation and reinvention…
As an introduction to the transmedia constellation The Bird of a Thousand Voices, Areg & Manushak anchors fiction in reality. It reveals how ancient hymnody and bird symbolism continue to shape musical imagination today. And shows how a story about a mythical bird restoring harmony can find new resonance in the present.
“Through their collaborative efforts, Tigran Hamasyan and Ruben Van Leer have crafted a unique experience that blends music, storytelling, and visual art.”
credits
| a film by | Ruben Van Leer |
| piano & vocals | Tigran Hamasyan |
| professor | Arusyak Tamrazian |
| vocals | Areni Agbabian |
| director of photography | Ezra Reverda |
| line producer | Sona Margaryan |
| assistant producer | Merujan Galstyan |
| gaffer | Razmik Hambardumyan, Sevak Baroyan |
| camera technicians | Gevorg Gharayan, Vahe Badalyan, Mushegh Avetisyan |
| sound engineer | Arsen Hakobyan |
| ArmTV–camera | Hrayr Sargsyan, Arsen Khechoyan, Tigran Eloyan |
| drone operator | Vahe Hovhannisyan |
| editor | Amber Hooijmans |
| sound design | Alexander Nezhinskiy – Evolsound |
| colorist | Amy Besate – Ambassadors |
| set photography | Hayk Barseghyan |
| music label | Naïve Records – Johann Audiffren |
| film equipment | KinoTech, Yerevan |
| co-production | Libelo & Fermata Film |
| co-producers | Nare Leone Ter-Gabrielyan, Sona Margaryan, Valentine Wurtz |
| producer | Ruben Van Leer |
| production company | Truth.io |
| with the support of | Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée (CNC) |
| special thanks to |
Matenadaran – Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts Mirzoyan Library – Karen Mirzoyan Michael Dishunts Tom Korkidis – New Village Management Marie Lavis Ara Khzmalyan Meri Davtyan Anahit Martirosyan Michelle Kruger Ambassadors Amsterdam Holland Festival |
filmmaker & media-artist
