Actor Samvel Tadevosyan is returning to the screen after a creative break of several years, taking the leading role in “88,” a 10-part drama and science-fiction series. Filming begins in October, and the series premieres in January 2027.
He is best known to Armenian audiences as Tigran from “Kyanq u Kriv” (Life and Fight, The Line), a 2016 drama set in 1991 during the Artsakh Liberation War, becoming one of the memorable faces of contemporary Armenian cinema.
More recently he became one of the faces of Dior’s Winter 2026-2027 menswear campaign, shot for the French luxury fashion house’s tailoring collection.
“88” is a time-travel story about a father and son, about time and guilt, choice and its price, unfolding simultaneously across two eras: Yerevan in 2026 and Armenia in 1988, in the weeks before the Spitak earthquake. Traveling through time, the protagonist goes back to 1988 to prevent a coming disaster.
Tadevosyan plays Adam, a journalist facing internal conflicts and difficult personal choices. He has spent years uncovering other people’s most complicated stories, yet the story of his own family stays unresolved. His father, the physicist Hakob, disappeared without a trace in 1994.
Decades later, a new development forces Adam back into a search he had long abandoned. It takes him unexpectedly to November 1988, where he meets his father as a young man and learns parts of his life he never knew. The personal story then connects to a larger question: what did his father know about the approaching disaster, and can changing the past change the future?
The series also recreates Armenia in 1988 before the earthquake, everyday life, work, and relationships in the weeks before a catastrophe no one yet sees coming. The Spitak earthquake struck on December 7, 1988, killing tens of thousands across northern Armenia.
The names of other cast members and the first trailer are expected soon.
His role in “Life and Fight” earned Tadevosyan the State Prize of Armenia, the Armenian National Film Academy’s “Anahit” Award, and a special award at the Golden Apricot International Film Festival. He has also appeared in “From Above,” “Crossing,” “Bravo, Virtuoso,” and “The Land Surveyors,” in the series “Against the Current” and “SSSR,” and as Komitas in “Songs of Solomon.”
Born in Yerevan in 1993, Tadevosyan graduated from the theater faculty of the Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinematography, and works as an actor, filmmaker, and theatre director. He has performed at the Opera and Ballet National Theater and the Hovhannes Tumanyan Puppet Theater, and won the Artavazd award for best young actor for his solo performance in “Egoist.”
