ngelica Sarkisyan is a Ukrainian-born, award-winning filmmaker, visual storyteller and spiritual anthropologist, whose work focuses on exploring the intersection of mysticism and cinema, while preserving cultural narratives.
Her storytelling is rooted in a deep inquiry into the human spirit shaped by her early life in post-Soviet Ukraine and expanded through pilgrimages to some of the worldâs most spiritually rich regions.
Angelica has been officially recognized by 29 Native American tribes and served as the sole cinematographer for a landmark project preserving their endangered oral traditions. From interviewing Kabbalah masters to documenting Indigenous ceremonies across the American Southwest, she has spent decades building trust, listening deeply, and capturing sacred stories before they disappear.
Her unique perspective blends academic rigor with soul-centered inquiry, creating films and visual media that feel both archival and transcendent. Her artistic practice weaves a spiritual narrative through every frame, deeply influenced by her studies with Alejandro Jodorowsky in Paris, and long-time friendship with visionaries like Leonard Cohen.
For over a decade, Angelica served as the official photographer and videographer of Rinzai-ji Zen Center under the guidance of Zen Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, capturing rare ceremonial moments and the quiet essence of spiritual practice, integrating meditative clarity into her visual practice. Angelica met Roshi when he was 95 years old. He welcomed her into his inner circle and  she accompanied him to remote retreats, dawn meditations, and high ceremonies few ever witness. She was not only a documentarian but also a student, absorbing teachings through proximity, intuition, and lived ritual. She spent the next 12 years there, until his passing at age 107. It was during this time that she met Leonard Cohen, a longtime student of Roshi, forming a friendship shaped by shared reverence for silence, poetry, and the sacred. Her photographs from these years became living archives, portraits of devotion, transience, and the spaces between words.
Angelica is also known for her integral role in "The Bridge Project", documenting the rituals and traditions of Native American tribed on the brink of extinction. Her work has been officially recognized by 29 Native American tribes and was central to The Bridge Project, a cultural preservation initiative that documented oral traditions, rituals, and sacred songs, some on the brink of extinction. In 2012 Angelica was honored to receive an invitatitation by Indiginous elders to film a series of documentaries. and interview their elders The tribes were concerned that their traditions were being lost because, for the first time in the history, their children had been introduced to technology. The work was birthed out of the many years she spent living among and documenting these Native American communities. She interviewed many indigenous elders, some in their nineties, as a way to help preserve oral traditions to be viewed by younger generations in educational institutions throughout the land, natives alongside non-natives.
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Beyond artistry, Angelica's commitment to social and environmental causes is unwavering. From the high desert of the American Southwest to the grasslands of Kenya, Angelica Sarkisyan has used film and photography as tools for justice. She spearheaded initiatives resulting in the construction of 24 schools in Kenya and helped to shut down a multi-billion dollar coal-burning power plant on the Navaho and Hopi reservations, where she partnered with youth-led Indigenous movements to document the environmental and cultural toll of coal-fired power plants, work that helped galvanize public support and contributed to the shutdown of a multi-billion-dollar facility on sacred land.
The thaumatrope housed a rotating mechanism with a different
picture on each side.
When rotated, you saw a combined picture (known as persistence
of vision).
The phenakitoscope featured spinning disks reflected in
mirrors that
made it seem like the pictures were moving.
The zoetrope was a hollow drum that housed images on long interchangeable
strips that spin and made the images appear to move.
The flip-book, also known as the kineograph, reached a wide
audience and is credited
with inspiring early animators more than the machines
developed in this era.
The praxinoscope expanded on the zoetrope, using multiple
wheels to rotate images.
It is considered to have shown the first prototypes of
the animated cartoon.
For over a decade, Angelica served as the official photographer and videographer of Rinzai-ji Zen Center under the guidance of Zen Master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, capturing rare ceremonial moments and the quiet essence of spiritual practice, integrating meditative clarity into her visual practice. Angelica met Roshi when he was 95 years old. He welcomed her into his inner circle and  she accompanied him to remote retreats, dawn meditations, and high ceremonies few ever witness. She was not only a documentarian but also a student, absorbing teachings through proximity, intuition, and lived ritual. She spent the next 12 years there, until his passing at age 107. It was during this time that she met Leonard Cohen, a longtime student of Roshi, forming a friendship shaped by shared reverence for silence, poetry, and the sacred. Her photographs from these years became living archives, portraits of devotion, transience, and the spaces between words.
đ„ Angelicaâs filmmaking helped turn hope into action transforming visibility into global support.
She helped create fundraising festivals for the Baby Girl Project to raise over $498,450 for girlsâ education in Kenyaâs Masai Mara, partnering with with WE Charity (Free The Children) Organization, alongside Oprahâs Angel Network, Adobe, MTV & Degrassi, đ with all net proceeds directly fund school-building and community empowerment.
Her film Cahuenga: Place of the Hill won Best Film and Best Score at PAH Fest Los Angeles.
The Dreams of the Hydra toured across North America after winning Flicker LAâs
Super 8 Film Fest and was featured at the Egyptian Theatre and Steve Allen Theater.
is the first animated film using hand-drawn animation, and is considered
by film historians to be the first animated cartoon.
A bronze-age pottery bowl depicts goats leaping
(Shahr-e Sukhteh, Iran).
Musical Mews and Feline Follies introduced Felix the Catâoften
considered the first animated movie star.
is considered the first cartoon to feature
an appealing
character.
Musical Mews and Feline Follies introduced Felix the Catâoften considered the first animated movie star.
Beyond artistry, Angelica's commitment to social and environmental causes is unwavering. She spearheaded initiatives resulting in the construction of 24 schools in Kenya and helped to shut down a multi-billion dollar coal-burning power plant on the Navaho and Hopi reservations.
 Her work was critical to the preservation of original Shamanic songs, prayers, and invocations representing the entire oral history of Los Angeles's original native Tataviam tribe. Her contributions to the preservation of the oral traditions of Native American communities caught the attention of Christopher Coppola, leading to an invitation to create a short film for his Project Access Hollywood (PAH) Film Festival.  Her documentary "Cahuenga, Place of the Hill", exploring the Tataviam tribe's struggle for survival, went on to win the awards for best original score and best film.
The phenakitoscope featured spinning disks reflected in
mirrors that
made it seem like the pictures were moving.
The zoetrope was a hollow drum that housed images on long interchangeable
strips that spin and made the images appear to move.
The flip-book, also known as the kineograph, reached a wide
audience and is credited
with inspiring early animators more than the machines
developed in this era.
The praxinoscope expanded on the zoetrope, using multiple
wheels to rotate images.
It is considered to have shown the first prototypes of
the animated cartoon.
isney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa
Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world.
Disney was an innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. He won 22 Academy Awards
during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World. As an animator andÂ
entrepreneur, Disney was particularly noted as a filmmaker and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created numerous
fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Disney himself was the original voice for Mickey. In addition to his Academy Awards, Disney won seven Emmy Awards. Today, there are Disney theme parks around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong.
isney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa
Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world.
Disney was an innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. He won 22 Academy Awards
during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World. As an animator andÂ
entrepreneur, Disney was particularly noted as a filmmaker and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created numerous
fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Disney himself was the original voice for Mickey. In addition to his Academy Awards, Disney won seven Emmy Awards. Today, there are Disney theme parks around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong.
 Angelica grew up in the fading light of the Soviet Union, a world where fear was institutional, silence was survival, and truth shifted with the political wind. She remembers the static buzz of the television as it broadcast the Chyrnobyl disaster, being at the in Red Square in Moscow when the August Coup erupted, tanks rolled in, crowds gathered while the empire was cracking. She saw monuments torn down, not by bombs, but by the sheer weight of awakening. And within that chaos, Angelica began to notice the divine: not in cathedrals, but in the space between stories, in the way people still gathered to sing, in the eyes of grandmothers who remembered a world before erasure.
The thaumatrope housed a rotating mechanism with a different
picture on each side.
When rotated, you saw a combined picture (known as persistence
of vision).
The phenakitoscope featured spinning disks reflected in
mirrors that
made it seem like the pictures were moving.
The zoetrope was a hollow drum that housed images on long interchangeable
strips that spin and made the images appear to move.
The flip-book, also known as the kineograph, reached a wide
audience and is credited
with inspiring early animators more than the machines
developed in this era.
The praxinoscope expanded on the zoetrope, using multiple
wheels to rotate images.
It is considered to have shown the first prototypes of
the animated cartoon.
Angelica is a filmmaker supporting filmmakers. She created an enormous website I made for the Hollywood Film Academy. Working with the owner and staff of the academy, I designed the layout, built the front end, produced multiple videos, animation, graphics, coded the backend, integrated the course schedule and imbedded the curriculum into the site.
Walt Disney releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first animated
feature to use hand-drawn animation.
The thaumatrope housed a rotating mechanism with a different
picture on each side.
When rotated, you saw a combined picture (known as persistence
of vision).
The phenakitoscope featured spinning disks reflected in
mirrors that
made it seem like the pictures were moving.
The zoetrope was a hollow drum that housed images on long interchangeable
strips that spin and made the images appear to move.
The flip-book, also known as the kineograph, reached a wide
audience and is credited
with inspiring early animators more than the machines
developed in this era.
The praxinoscope expanded on the zoetrope, using multiple
wheels to rotate images.
It is considered to have shown the first prototypes of
the animated cartoon.
The voice of the Wicked Queen, was able to achieveÂ
the raspy Old Hagâs voice by removing her dentures.
It took almost two years to come up withÂ
the final renderings of the Seven Dwarfs.
The animation industry began to adapt to the fact that television continued its rise as the
entertainment medium of choice for American families. Studios created many cartoons for TV, using a âlimited animationâ style. By the mid â80s, with help from cable channels such as The Disney Channel and Nickolodeon, cartoons were ubiquitous on TV.
Hanna-Barbera releases The Flintstones, the first animated
series on prime-time television.
The Yogi Bear Show, a spin-off of Huckleberry Hound
(another Hanna-Barbera production), debuts on national TV.
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises wins the Academy Award for Best Short Film
for The PinkPhink (of the Pink Panther series) and continues to
create shorts for theatrical release.
Fritz the Cat is releasedâthe first animated
adult (X-rated) feature film.
Fritz the Cat is releasedâthe first animatedÂ
adult (X-rated) feature film.
The CGI (computer generated imagery) revolutionized animation. A principal difference of CGI animation compared to traditional animation is that drawing is replaced by 3D modeling, almost like a virtual version of stop-motion. A form of animation that combines the two and uses 2D computer drawing can be considered computer aided animation.
This short film was the first fully CGI-animated film,
created by The Graphics Group, the precursor to Pixar.
The Adventures of Andre and Wally B., the firstÂ
fully CGI-animated film short
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The Simpsons is an American adult animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and in 2009 it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running American scripted primetime television series.
Big Hero 6Â is the first Disney animated film
to feature Marvel Comics characters
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