Roman Balayan
Roman Gurgenovich Balayan (Armenian: Ռոման Գուրգենի Բալայան, Russian: Рома́н Гурге́нович Балая́н; born 15 April 1941, Nerkin Horatagh, Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, Soviet Union[1]) is a Ukrainian-Armenian film director.[2] Balayan worked as an actor in the theater of Stepanakert (located in the Nagorno-Karabakh region) in 1959–1961.He is well-known for his literary adaptations; authors whom Balayan has adapted for the screen are Anton Chekhov (Kashtanka, 1975; The Kiss, 1983, TV), Ivan Turgenev (The Lone Wolf, 1977; First Love, 1995), and Nikolai Leskov (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 1989).His film Flights in Dreams and Reality (1982), a drama about depression and a midlife crisis, is one of his most well-known works.At the time of its release, politically minded viewers perceived it as a critique of Brezhnevian “stagnation”.