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Michael Aloyan was born and raised in Glendale, CA. The son of Armenian immigrants, his father was a graphic designer and his mother was a social worker (an aspiring concert pianist back home). Enthralled with art from a young age, Aloyan spent most of his youth immersed in painting and sculpting. He soon fell in love with filmmaking and started making stop-motion animated movies with his dad's Hi-8 camera at the age of eight. With Aloyan writing the scripts and serving as character artist, he and his father built the clay puppets and miniature sets together.

For his thirteenth birthday his parents bought him his own camera and that summer, he gathered his friends and made a 45-minute film. Aloyan rented out a local theater and charged $5 for admission, screening to a sold-out audience. He took the profits and invested them into making another film over the following school year. His younger brother, Arman Aloyan, began composing the score to all of his films. The summer after he graduated high school, Aloyan wrote "String," an original TV pilot that he sold to 20th Century Fox Television before his 20th birthday.

As an MFA Directing student at UCLA, he wrote a letter to actor Karren Karagulian (Anora, Tangerine) asking him to star in a short film called "This Land" (2019), in which he wrote the lead role for Karren. Admiring the young filmmaker's ambition and persistence, Karagulian said yes. The two would go on to make another film together called "Carnivore" (2023), Aloyan's most personal film to date, that premiered in competition at the Golden Apricot International Film Festival and screened in competition at the Oscar-qualifying LA Shorts.

Aloyan has been a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, Academy Nicholl Fellowship, Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop, Disney/ABC Writing Program, ATX Television Festival, and his recent work "The Dive" was a featured script on The Black List, after which it sold to AMC Studios. He is currently working on his feature film debut.

Some of his favorite films are <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0071562/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">The Godfather Part II (1974)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0053291/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Some Like It Hot (1959)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0053779/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">La Dolce Vita (1960)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0099685/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">GoodFellas (1990)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt1375666/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Inception (2010)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0078788/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Apocalypse Now (1979)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0245574/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Y tu mamá también (2001)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0166924/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Mulholland Drive (2001)</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0477348/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">No Country for Old Men (2007)</a> and <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0120663/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Eyes Wide Shut (1999)</a>.

Parents: Karren Aloyan (father) and Vardui Tigranyan (mother).
Siblings: Arman Aloyan (brother).

One of his biggest influences is <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000217/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Martin Scorsese</a>. In his high school years, he spent countless hours studying Scorsese&#39;s films. Other major influences are <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000229/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Steven Spielberg</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0634240/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Christopher Nolan</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000338/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Francis Ford Coppola</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0190859/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Alfonso Cuarón</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0898288/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Denis Villeneuve</a> and <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000759/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Paul Thomas Anderson</a>.

The music for his films is always scored by his brother, <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm4195048/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Arman Aloyan</a>.

Often works with actor <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm1199489/?ref_=nmtrv_trv">Karren Karagulian</a>.

Draws the storyboards for his films himself.

Trivia

Michael Aloyan

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