Gariné Torossian
Film (Canada)
To Make A Garden
.png)
.png)
"Why is it so calm? I leave my laptop and open the window onto an imaginary green space. It’s lush with leaves and swaying branches. I walk through the air hopping from one leaf to another. The rain pours on me like a tonic and I feel calm and free. No one needs me at this moment."
Torossian was born in Beirut, Lebanon to Armenian parents and moved to Canada at the age of nine. After studying photography and film at York University in Toronto, she first worked as a photographer before turning her focus to film.
After her first 16mm film, Visions premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, her second film, Girl from Moush, screened in the 1994 Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival. Her short films My Own Obsession, Sparklehorse and Babies on the Sun also screened at the Berlinale in 1998, 2000 and 2002 before her debut feature film, Stone Time Touch, premiered in the 2007 Forum section of the Berlinale. Retrospectives have been devoted to her work in Canada, London, and Berlin.
Her films focus on themes of memory, longing, and identity, often in connection with her Armenian heritage.
