Oscar-winning ‘The Last Repair Shop’ documents journey through Baku pogroms

By Paul Vartan Sookiasian

A film profiling the life of an Armenian man who fled pogroms in Azerbaijan and embarked on a new career fixing instruments for students in the United States has won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film at Sunday’s Academy Awards. “The Last Repair Shop” is a 2023 Canadian-American short documentary film directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers.

It tells the story of four instrument repair technicians at the Los Angeles Unified School District who work to ensure no student is deprived of the joy of music. The district is said to be the last in the nation to still provide freely repaired musical instruments to students, some of whom are also featured in the film talking about the help and comfort the instruments provide them. The technicians are keenly aware of the impact their work has on the students, many of whom are from immigrant or economically disadvantaged backgrounds and who would not otherwise have access to the instruments.

Steve Bagmanyan is a piano technician and the repair shop’s supervisor. His first exposure to music was watching his school’s piano tuner at work as a young Armenian boy living in Baku. Like hundreds of thousands of other Armenians, his life there came to an abrupt and tragic end during the chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union. As Bagmanyan says in the film, “My parents couldn’t imagine that something bad could happen because we had friends, neighbors that we lived with all these years side by side, so nobody could think that a war would start.”

He describes Armenian residents gathering outside by bonfires on cold winter nights to guard their homes. However, after his father was abruptly murdered at his workplace, Bagmanyan’s surviving family members joined the exodus, forced to leave everything they owned behind.

As Bagmanyan tells it, “It wasn’t easy to get to the airport because you still look Armenian, and on the street people can stop you and harm you. Thanks to my Azerbaijani friends, they took us to the airport and basically created a human corridor in the airport to get us inside.”

Bargamyan arrived in the United States not knowing any English, but learning his sponsor was a piano tuner brought back his childhood inspiration, and soon after, he enrolled in tuning classes. His story of survival and the American Dream is woven in with those of the other three technicians, who have each overcome adversity to be where they are today.

Running through the film is the theme of triumph over adversity, made possible by the healing power of music, which has the power to change lives. The film has also made an impact on the shop’s ability to support that mission. Bagmanyan says his inbox is now full of emails from fans of the film who want to donate instruments, money, or their time. A $15 million-dollar fundraiser has been launched to support this last-of-its-kind operation.

Stephen Derluguian, the film’s colorist.

“The Last Repair Shop” is now streaming on YouTube.