Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to VK
When apricots ripen in Yerevan, the international cinema festival opens there. On July 8 the IX “Golden Apricot” festival opened with the comedy “Shor and Shorshor”, shot in 1926 by one of pioneers of Armenian cinema, Amo Beknazaryan.
The program “Yerevan Premieres” includes the drama “Love” by the Austrian director Michael Haneke which was awarded Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival. The leading actors are Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintingnant. Along with it other participants of the Cannes festival will be presented: “Moonrise Kingdom” by Wes Anderson, “Beyond the Hills” by Cristian Mungiu and “Paradise: Love” by Ulrich Seidl.
This year “Golden Apricot” received a record number of application forms – 1250. It is twice as many as last year. For the showcase only 150 pictures from 44 countries were selected. “150 is a number that has become regular for our cinema festival. The thing is that the number of cinema halls is limited in Yerevan, and it restricts our opportunities to show more movies,” the head executive of the festival, Mikael Stamboltsyan, said. 90 movies were selected for participation in the contest program in four nominations: “International fiction cinema,” “International documentary,” “Armenian View” and the short-film contest “Kernel.” This year 560 application forms were sent for participation in the contest “Kernel”, three times more than in 2011.
The biggest interest is caused by the program of feature films. The jury of fiction movies contest is headed by prominent Spanish director Victor Erice. 12 pictures by directors from France, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Iran, and other countries were picked up for participation in the contest.
This year the festival in Yerevan, which has been declared a World Capital of Books by UNESCO, received a new out-of-competition program “A Book and Cinema.” It requires the showing of movies based on works by classics of world and Armenian literature - Granta Matevosyan, Ovannes Tumanyan, Charles Dickens, Thomas Mann, Gunter Grass, Charlotte Bronte, and others.
The audience has an opportunity to see a program devoted to cinema history – arrangements devoted to the 85th anniversary of Frunze Dovlatyan, the 90th anniversary of Yuri Yerznkyan, and the 80th anniversary of Andrey Tarkovsky.
Participants of the forum of joint cinema production Directors Without Borders will present their work. The forum will take place for the sixth time this year. Yerevan’s residents will see works by directors from the post-Soviet era within the program Cinema of the CIS Countries. The traditional program Armenian-Turkish Platform includes showings of five Turkish and five Armenian director’s movies. Among significant figures of the cinema festival are Turkish directors Enis Ryza and Ozdjan Alper, who has brought the movie “Autumn.” The Turkish mass media is covering the event for the first time.
Alexander Sokurov is also taking part in the Golden Apricot festival. His films have received awards in Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Moscow, and Venice. Within the retrospective program it is planned to show his movies “Molokh”, “Taurus”, “The Sun”, and “Faust”.
For the first time an awarded from the Armenian Apostolic Church “Let There Be Light” will be presented at the cinema festival. Alexander Sokurov is the first to receive it. It will be awarded on July 12 for propogating spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian values and his contribution to international cinema art.
