Armenian writer-director Ryan Mekenian calls Los Angeles, the ancestral land of the Tongva people, home. His short documentary, Spokespeople, which celebrates the vibrant bicycle communities of LA, garnered the Jury Prize for Best Short Doc at the Annapolis Film Festival. Spokespeople also screened at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival and other Oscar-qualifying festivals such as the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, Bogotá Short Film Festival, & Edmonton International Film Festival.
Ryan's feature screenplay, The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, was a quarterfinalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship and received the Screenwriting Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. His works have been distributed widely by ShortsTV & Kanopy.
He holds an MFA from USC's School of Cinematic Arts and a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In 2023, Ryan was honored with the Emerging Arts Fellowship from the California Arts Council.