Melanya Hamasyan is a director and screenwriter from Gyumri, Armenia. She has a Master’s degree in fi lm directing from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. 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, had its international premiere in Doclisboa International Film Festival, and has recently been nominated for the Doc Alliance awards. Hamasyan is currently developing her first feature, Poetics of Belonging, an Armenian-American co-production.