How to Build Your POM Week: The Pomegranate Film Festival Returns November 9 to 15
For one week each November, a theatre on Hallcrown Place in North York becomes the busiest Armenian cinema in the diaspora. This year, film fans can choose from 52 films from 17 countries, including a Second World War drama in two parts hosted by Atom Egoyan, Armenia's 2027 Oscar submission, a football team from 1973, an animated epic made with artificial intelligence, and a closing film about a chef who goes looking for recipes nobody wrote down.
This is the nineteenth Pomegranate Film Festival, and it runs from Monday, November 9 to Sunday, November 15, 2026.
What follows is not a programme listing. The festival publishes one of those. This is the thing we actually wanted when we started going: a plan. Which screenings to build the week around, which pass costs less than the tickets it replaces, and what to do if you have one evening rather than seven.
The shape of the week
POM runs in two halves, and knowing which is which saves confusion.
Monday, November 9: the virtual programme launches the festival, with films available to watch from home from anywhere in the world. A Virtual Pass gives you access to all six online screening programmes until January 7, 2027.
Thursday, November 12 to Sunday, November 15: the live screenings, fifteen of them, all at the Hamazkayin Theatre, 50 Hallcrown Place, Toronto.
Saturday, November 14: Gala Night, the festival's centrepiece evening, features Priceless Sons at 9:00 p.m., with a cocktail reception beginning at 7:30 p.m. Food from Esquire Restaurant, an open bar and all-vinyl DJ sets by Shaunt Raffi of Tapestry keep the party going before and after the film. Guests are encouraged to dress retro to match this year's festival theme.
So if you can only make part of it, the live weekend runs Thursday evening through Sunday night. Saturday and Sunday are the heaviest days, with five screenings each.
The six you have probably heard about
De Gaulle, Parts 1 and 2, presented by Atom Egoyan
Simon Abkarian plays Charles de Gaulle in the two-part epic directed by Antonin Baudry, with Academy Award-nominated director Atom Egoyan hosting a Q&A after each screening. Because of their length, they are shown on separate evenings:
Part 1, Résistance: Thursday, November 12, 7:30 p.m.
Part 2, Liberté: Sunday, November 15, 5:00 p.m., followed by a reception catered by festival sponsor Mayrik Restaurant.
Well-known to POM audiences, Abkarian has appeared in many festival screenings over the years, including 1915, Aram, Army of Crime, The Cut, Voyage to Armenia and Egoyan's own Ararat as painter Arshile Gorky.
Tickets: $20 per film, or $30 for both as the De Gaulle De-Luxe package.
In the Land of Arto, Armenia's Oscar submission
Friday, November 13, 7:30 p.m., $15. The Ontario premiere of Armenia's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards. Director Tamara Stepanyan returns to POM, where her films My Armenian Phantoms and Little Stones previously screened. My Armenian Phantoms was also Armenia's Oscar submission last year, making this her second consecutive entry. The film stars Camille Cottin and opened this year's Locarno Film Festival.
It screens with The Pomegranate Trees, a short film by Toronto-born director Kamee Abrahamian, based on the William Saroyan story of the same name and dedicated to their late father, Nigol. The short stars Michael Goorjian, a past POM D'OR recipient, whose film Amerikatsi has been seen by many people in this community twice.
A feature and a short Saroyan adaptation, and a Toronto director, for fifteen dollars. If you only come to one thing all week, we recommend this programme.
Priceless Sons, the Gala film
Saturday, November 14, from 7:30 p.m. The festival's programme lists Priceless Sons as the Gala film, a 96-minute Armenian family drama, with festivities beginning at 7:30 p.m. and the film at 9:00 p.m.
Seventeen years ago, two newborns were switched by accident. One grew up with a successful businessman. The other grew up with a man whose recklessness buried his family in debt. The day the mistake surfaces, it lands on both households at once.
Directed by Arsho Harutyunyan, this Yerevan summer blockbuster stars Mkrtich Arzumanyan, Tamara Petrosyan and Suren Ghazaryan.
Ararat '73, North American premiere
Sunday, November 15, 3:00 p.m., $15. The story of Ararat Yerevan's 1973 season, the year the club won both of the Soviet Union's main domestic football trophies, and of the coach who got them there. It is a 2026 Russian language production, and POM is billing this as its North American premiere.
This is the screening to bring people for whom Armenian cinema means something heavy. The festival's own framing is the giveaway: a team whose run became a shared source of joy and pride for Armenians far beyond Armenia's borders. Sport as diaspora glue, which is a thing every reader of this site understands without being told.
A Woman Today, Canadian premiere
Friday, November 13, 9:30 p.m. The latest film from Robert Guédiguian, one of the most recognizable French-Armenian directors, gets its Canadian premiere. It is also included in the $45 Vive La France package, which saves $15 on all three films.
It screens with POSE, a short film by local filmmaker Artur Andonian, who will introduce the screening.
A Spoonful of Love, the closing film
Sunday, November 15, 8:00 p.m., $20. This North American premiere follows an established Boston chef who travels to Armenia looking for inspiration, and finds a guarded young woman trying to keep a restaurant alive using forgotten Armenian recipes. From the director of Thank You Dad and Garegin Nzhdeh.
The festival closes with the Audience Choice Awards presentation following the screening, bringing the week to a celebratory finish.
Four more that deserve your attention
Mher Junior, Saturday morning
Saturday, November 14, 10:30 a.m. This 80-minute animated feature reimagines Little Mher, a character from the Armenian epic Daredevils of Sasun. In the legend, Mher, son of David of Sasun, seals himself inside the Cave of Ravenstone to wait for a world worth coming back to. The film imagines what happens when two schoolchildren accidentally release him into present-day Armenia, where smartphones are more powerful than swords.
Here is the part worth knowing. Billed as Armenia's first feature-length film animated with artificial intelligence, director Hovhannes Margaryan and his team used the technology to help with image generation and motion animation, while the writing, performances and music remained in human hands. The team also drew on photographs of Armenian architecture and landscapes to give the film an authentic sense of place. Mher Junior opened in Armenian cinemas on June 1, 2026, International Children's Day.
Take a child. Then argue about it afterwards, because this is exactly the kind of film this community will be arguing about for years.
Outliving Shakespeare, the screening that opens the week
Thursday, November 12, 5:30 p.m. The live programme opens with a 94-minute documentary set in a crumbling Soviet era retirement home in Armenia. Residents stage an original play called Shakespeare's Sins, in which the playwright's characters confront him about the lives he wrote for them. As rehearsals unfold, they begin to mirror the residents' own lives. One participant rejoins the company after the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Directed by Inna Sahakyan and Ruben Ghazaryan, and produced by Bars Media in Armenia with Bind in the Netherlands, the film premiered in the Luminous section at IDFA in 2025.
It screens alongside Mr. Beno, a 20-minute Armenian short by Ani Khamoyan, about an elderly math teacher who has wanted to be a stand-up comedian since he was a boy, but whose mother steered him to numbers instead. When he learns about Yerevan's first stand-up competition, he enters it without telling his family.
The two shorts that won at Golden Apricot this year
Both of this year's prize-winning Armenian short films are on the POM schedule, attached to other screenings. Here is why they are worth your attention.
Dialogues Solitaires took the Golden Apricot in the Koriz short film competition at the 23rd Golden Apricot festival in Yerevan this year, along with the Gennadi Melkonian Special Prize. This 25-minute France-Armenia co-production by Serouj Hovsepian was shot largely in close-up. Aren spends a night in Paris caught between telling his friend Van that he loves him and losing the friendship, when an encounter with a former lover reopens the question. It screens Sunday, November 15 at 1:00 p.m. in the shorts programme.
Paid Mourners took the Silver Apricot in the same competition. The 35-minute Armenian short by Ovsanna Gevorgyan tells the story of a family of professional mourners who pass the work down through the women. Sixteen-year-old Margo, who is building a following on TikTok, wants nothing to do with it. But when her grandmother announces she has a week left to live, Margo has seven days to learn. It screens Friday, November 13 at 5:00 p.m., alongside three other shorts, including Apaga, a 50-minute documentary by Alexis Pazoumian about three young people building a future in Armenia; Fried Chicken and Strip Checkers by Ophelia Harutyunyan, which screened at TIFF 2025; and Congratulations, It's a Girl! by Yelena Arshakyan.
Tales from the Diaspora, Parts 1 and 2
Sunday, November 15, 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Eight films across two programmes explore Armenian identity, memory and belonging across borders.
Part 1, about an hour and three quarters: four films, including Scattered Seeds of the Pomegranate (Les grains éparpillés de la grenade), a 52-minute documentary by Alexandra Routhiau Mikaelian tracing Armenian communities across France and Europe after 1915; Spira, Spera, about a city official determined to celebrate his town through its traditional rugs; My Soul in Exile, adapted from a work by Zabel Yesayan; and Pomegranate, a 14-minute British drama written by Abi Zakarian.
Part 2, a little under two hours: four films, including Lost, Found, Hidden, which traces the extraordinary journey of a medieval Armenian manuscript from Cilicia to Poland and its rediscovery centuries later; the award-winning Dialogues Solitaires, about a young man in Paris confronting his feelings for a friend; Karayr, an 18-minute post-apocalyptic short from Jordan; and Anmoruk, a five-minute film by Raffi Asdourian.
If you have ever tried to explain to someone what the word diaspora means and found yourself just listing countries, this is the morning to send them to.
The full live schedule
Fifteen screening blocks, all at the Hamazkayin Theatre, Armenian Youth Centre, 50 Hallcrown Place, Toronto.
Thursday, November 12
5:30 p.m. Outliving Shakespeare and Mr. Beno
7:30 p.m. De Gaulle, Part 1: Résistance, followed by a Q&A hosted by Atom Egoyan
Friday, November 13
5:00 p.m. Apaga, Paid Mourners, Fried Chicken & Strip Checkers and Congratulations, It's a Girl!
7:30 p.m. In the Land of Arto and The Pomegranate Trees
9:30 p.m. A Woman Today and POSE
Saturday, November 14
10:30 a.m. Mher Junior
12:15 p.m. Animal Farm and Snake Soup
2:15 p.m. We Beat the Dream Team
4:00 p.m. 13 Kilometres from the Tunnel
7:30 p.m. Gala Night reception, followed by Priceless Sons at 9:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 15
11:00 a.m. Tales from the Diaspora, Scattered Seeds of the Pomegranate, Spira Spera, My Soul in Exile and Pomegranate
1:00 p.m. Shorts programme, Lost Found Hidden, Dialogues Solitaires, Karayr and Anmoruk
3:00 p.m. Ararat '73
5:00 p.m. De Gaulle, Part 2: Liberté, followed by a Q&A hosted by Atom Egoyan
8:00 p.m. A Spoonful of Love, followed by the Audience Choice Awards
The full festival features 52 films from 17 countries. The virtual programme launches November 9 to 11, with worldwide viewing available through January 7, 2027.
The pass math, done for you
This is the part people guess at. Here is what the festival publishes, and what it means in practice.
Festival Pass, $195. Every film, including the virtual programme and the Gala. The festival lists the saving at $130, so by its own arithmetic the full value is around $325. Worth it if you are coming to the Gala and more than a handful of screenings.
The Big Ticket, $120. Your choice of In the Land of Arto or A Woman Today on the Friday, plus the Gala, plus the closing film. Saves $20. Now that we know the Gala film is Priceless Sons, this is the pass for someone who wants the Gala evening and one serious film either side of it.
Vive La France, $45. Both De Gaulle films plus A Woman Today. Saves $15.
De Gaulle De Luxe, $30. Both De Gaulle films. Saves $10.
Virtual Pass, $25. Every virtual film, watched at home. Saves $15, and it is the best value on the list if your week is busy.
Two honest observations. If you are a student or paying for a family, the single tickets at $15 get you In the Land of Arto, Ararat '73 and the closing film for $50, which is three of the week's headline screenings, and nobody at the door thinks less of you for it. And if your November is already full, the Virtual Pass at $25 means you miss the Q&A sessions but not the films.
What POM actually is, and why it keeps going
The Pomegranate Film Festival grew out of the Toronto chapter of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society, and the festival describes itself, in the material it sent us, as the largest Armenian film festival in the diaspora and as entirely volunteer-run since 2006. That is the fact worth sitting with for a moment. Nineteen editions, 52 films in this one, international premieres, and a volunteer organization behind it all.
That extends past the screenings. The festival runs the POMgrant Bursary for emerging filmmakers exploring multicultural identity through film, and tells us it has supported more than forty films so far. Sponsorship, the festival says, starts at $50, is tax-deductible, and supports both the festival and the bursary. If you run a business and you have ever wondered what the smallest useful sponsorship looks like in this community, that is the number, and sponsorship@pomegranatefilmfestival.com is the address.
Practical notes
Where: Hamazkayin Theatre, Armenian Youth Centre, 50 Hallcrown Place, Toronto, for all live screenings.
Tickets: the festival's box office is now live at pom2026.eventive.org, where all fourteen live screenings are listed. We also keep the current links on our event page. Note that the festival's main website is still showing material from an older edition, so go to the box office rather than the homepage.
Subtitles: the closing film is screening with English subtitles. Several of the shorts carry them too. For the rest, check the individual listing.
Q&A sessions: both De Gaulle screenings include one, hosted by Atom Egoyan.
Still to come: the virtual programme lineup, and the film guide, which the box office says has not been released yet.
We keep the festival's dates and details on our POM event page, and we update it as the lineup fills in, usually within a day of hearing. If you want the rest of the autumn in one place, our Toronto page and the Ontario community guide have it, and the national guide covers the rest of the country.
Our pick, if you make us choose
One evening: Friday, November 13, for In the Land of Arto and The Pomegranate Trees.
One morning, if there are children in the house: Saturday, November 14 at 10:30, for Mher Junior.
One day: Sunday, November 15, which gives you Tales from the Diaspora at eleven and again at one, Ararat '73 at three, De Gaulle Part 2 at five with Egoyan, a Mayrik catered reception, and the closing film and awards at eight. That is five screenings in a single day. Check the running times before you commit to all of them, because De Gaulle Part 2 is half of a two part epic and the gap to eight o'clock is not generous. Either way it is a full day of cinema for the price of a decent dinner.
The whole week: the Festival Pass, and tell your family you are busy.
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Frequently asked questions
When and where is the Pomegranate Film Festival 2026?
The nineteenth Pomegranate Film Festival runs from Monday, November 9 to Sunday, November 15, 2026. The virtual programme begins November 9, and the live screenings all take place at the Hamazkayin Theatre, 50 Hallcrown Place, Toronto, starting Thursday, November 12. Gala Night is Saturday, November 14.
What is the Gala film this year?
Priceless Sons, screening Saturday, November 14, with festivities from 7:30 p.m. and the film at 9:00 p.m. It is a 96-minute Armenian family drama about two newborns switched by accident seventeen years earlier, directed by Arsho Harutyunyan.
How many films are in the festival?
The festival's announcement for its nineteenth edition gives 52 films from 17 countries. Most of those appear across the live screenings in Toronto, and the rest are expected in the virtual programme, which has not been published yet.
What does a ticket or pass cost?
Single screenings are $15 for In the Land of Arto and Ararat '73, and $20 for each De Gaulle film and the closing film. Packages are the De Gaulle De Luxe at $30 for both De Gaulle films, Vive La France at $45 for both plus A Woman Today, the Virtual Pass at $25 for all virtual films, The Big Ticket at $120, and the Festival Pass at $195 for everything including the Gala.
Is Atom Egoyan appearing at the festival?
Yes. Atom Egoyan presents both De Gaulle screenings, Part 1 on Thursday, November 12 and Part 2 on Sunday, November 15, and the festival says he hosts a question and answer session after each one.
What is In the Land of Arto?
It is Armenia's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, which are held in 2027, directed by Tamara Stepanyan, and it receives its Ontario premiere at POM on Friday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m. It screens with Kamee Abrahamian's short film The Pomegranate Trees, based on the William Saroyan story and starring Michael Goorjian.
What is Ararat '73 about?
It follows Ararat Yerevan's 1973 season, when the club won both of the Soviet Union's main domestic football trophies, and the pride that run created for Armenians well beyond Armenia. It is a 2026 Russian language film, and POM screens it on Sunday, November 15 at 3:00 p.m. as a North American premiere.
What is Mher Junior?
An eighty minute animated feature based on the Daredevils of Sasun, in which Little Mher emerges from the Cave of Ravenstone into the present day. Directed by Hovhannes Margaryan, it is billed as Armenia's first feature length film animated with artificial intelligence, with the technology used for imagery and motion while the script, voices, music and art direction were done by people. It screens Saturday, November 14 at 10:30 a.m.
Are there screenings suitable for children?
Saturday daytime is the most family friendly part of the schedule. Mher Junior at 10:30 a.m. is an animated feature drawn from an Armenian epic, and Animal Farm at 12:15 p.m. is Andy Serkis's animated adaptation of the Orwell novel. Parents should still check the individual listings, since Animal Farm is a political fable rather than a children's cartoon.
Can I watch POM films online?
Yes. The virtual programme starts on Monday, November 9 and a Virtual Pass covering all virtual films is $25. The live screenings, the question and answer sessions and the Gala are in person only. The virtual lineup itself had not been published at the time of writing.
Who runs the Pomegranate Film Festival?
POM grew out of the Toronto chapter of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society and describes itself as entirely volunteer run since 2006, and as the largest Armenian film festival in the diaspora. This is its nineteenth edition.
What is the POMgrant Bursary?
It is the festival's fund for emerging filmmakers exploring multicultural identity through film, and the festival tells us it has supported more than forty films. Festival sponsorships, which the festival says start at $50 and are tax deductible, support both the festival and the bursary.
Where do I buy tickets?
Through the festival's box office at pom2026.eventive.org, where all the live screenings are listed. Our event page carries the current links as well. Note that the festival's main website still shows material from an older edition, so use the box office.