Arby Ovanessian (Director)

Born: 1941, Isfahan.

Of Armenian descent.

He worked as a set designer, until 1963 when he traveled to England to study cinema. He returned to Iran in 1966 and became one of the most prominent theater directors of his generation. Before he turned to Spring he had directed a number of shorts, among them a documentary (about thirty minutes) called Lebbeus Whose Surname Was Thaddeus, 1967.
This is an exquisite black-and-white film shot on location about a pilgrimage of Armenians to the mausoleum of a saint, which begins with a contemplative survey of the scared site, culminates in the congregation of the pilgrims, and concludes, after they pack and leave, with a magnificent final shot of the solitary site of the church in the middle of the desert, suddenly covered by a wandering cloud.
Ovanessian's documentary is shot with pious regard for the sanctity of the site, considerable attention to the social character of the event, and the wondrous occasion of a solitary sacred site suddenly transformed into a social event, and then turned back to its originary solitude.
He developed a close collaborative rapport with Ali Mohammad Afghani, though it was suddenly aborted by the unfortunate events surrounding the production otAhu Khanom's Husband.

Burned by that unfortunate experience, Ovanessian turned to an Armenian story by M. Armin, from which he adapted his own screenplay. When it was first released, in 1972, Spring was a box-office disaster, while critically it sharply divided its admirers and detractors—some thinking it beautiful, poetic, lyrical, and revolutionary, while others considered it boring, banal, and complicated.