“The Last Repair Shop” featuring Steve Bagmanyan, who faced ethnic persecution in Azerbaijan in the 1980s, wins Academy Award

“The Last Repair Shop”, a short documentary that features Steve Bagmanyan, who faced ethnic persecution in Azerbaijan in the 1980s, has won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film, Armenian Film Society reports.

The film is directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers. Director Ben Proudfoot shared during the Q&A, “We were in solidarity with the Armenian community and the Armenian Diaspora.”

The film tells the story of four devoted craftspeople who help keep over 80,000 student musical instruments in good repair in the city of Los Angeles. The film blends the unexpectedly intimate personal histories of the repair people with emotional, firsthand accounts from the actual student musicians for whom their instruments made all the difference.