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From Movie Legends’ Lips: Golden Apricot bringing the cinema world to Yerevan

Once again the great film occasion united famous and unknown but promising representatives of the cinema world in Yerevan from July 11-18. The 7th Golden Apricot International Film Festival received 500 applications, about 120 films out of them selected and showcased, 45 represented in 3 sections of the international competition.  

Among the guests at Golden Apricot were the world film legend Claudia Cardinale, one of the most eminent and gorgeous Italian actresses, Atom Egoyan, Semih Kaplanoglu, Armen Medvedev, Rob Nilsson, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Stanislav Govorukhin, Lee Chang-dong and others. The host of the 7th Golden Apricot IFF was Serzh Avetikyan, a French director of Armenian origin. “Mayrig” (“Mother”) by Henri Verneuil’s opened the festival.

Claire Denis is a Paris-based filmmaker and one of the major artistic voices of contemporary French cinema. Claire Denis made her directorial and screenwriting debut in 1988 with Chocolat. The film, inspired by Denis’ own experiences in Africa, proved to be a very auspicious debut – screened at Cannes the same year and earned both a Golden Palm nomination and a César nomination for Best New Director.

Once again the great film occasion united famous and unknown but promising representatives of the cinema world in Yerevan from July 11-18. The 7th Golden Apricot International Film Festival received 500 applications, about 120 films out of them selected and showcased, 45 represented in 3 sections of the international competition.  

Among the guests at Golden Apricot were the world film legend Claudia Cardinale, one of the most eminent and gorgeous Italian actresses, Atom Egoyan, Semih Kaplanoglu, Armen Medvedev, Rob Nilsson, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Stanislav Govorukhin, Lee Chang-dong and others. The host of the 7th Golden Apricot IFF was Serzh Avetikyan, a French director of Armenian origin. “Mayrig” (“Mother”) by Henri Verneuil’s opened the festival.

Claire Denis is a Paris-based filmmaker and one of the major artistic voices of contemporary French cinema. Claire Denis made her directorial and screenwriting debut in 1988 with Chocolat. The film, inspired by Denis’ own experiences in Africa, proved to be a very auspicious debut – screened at Cannes the same year and earned both a Golden Palm nomination and a César nomination for Best New Director.

“When I was a young student, there were very few women who shot movies. We thought handling a team was a physical labor and women had better work with the costumes and the make-up. I finished cinema school to reach something. I have never been a feminist warrior. When I finished the school nobody believed that I would become a moviemaker”, says Claire Denis.

Another famous guest of the festival Stanislav Govorukhin, director, scriptwriter and actor says, “Directing is one of the most wonderful professions. It’s just enjoying oneself and being paid for. Censorship is like the banks of a river, and the river without banks is like a marsh, a marsh we have today”.

“People usually live one single life. Due to cinema I have had more than 130. One has to be strong enough not to be lost. I became famous very quickly and that didn’t let my sister have further promotion. It was her dream to be in the cinema and the theater”, says Claudia Cardinale to the Armenian audience.

Claudia had planned to become a teacher until she won first prize in Tunisian beauty contest in 1957. The prize was a trip to Venice where she was noticed by the Italian film industry, and signed a seven-year contract with Vides films. In the 1960’s Cardinale starred in some of Italy’s finest movies, including Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard II”, Fedrico Fellini’s 8½ and Sergio Leone’s “Once upon a Time in the West”. Henri Verneuil chose her to tell his story in the famous film “Mayrig” (Mother), a semi-autobiographical film about the struggles of an Armenian family that has immigrated to France from Turkey.

It is the festival that brought to Yerevan also the famous Greek director Theodoros Angelopoulos whose first full-length feature film “Reconstruction” was screened in 1970. Since then his films have been featured in countless international festivals and have won numerous awards establishing him as one of the most influential directors of contemporary cinema.

He brought to the Golden Apricot a film made in collaboration with Tonino Guera who wrote the script. He met Tonino in Rome in 1981. Then Tonino shared an apartment with Andrey Tarkovsky. “I requested a meeting with Tonino. We met and in 5 minutes we began working and cooperating. He has a gift of working with different people. It’s amazing the way he moves from one director to another, he also worked with Fellini and Antonioni.” Speaking about his movies he says, “Cinema is like literature where some writers write with short sentences like Hemingway does and some writers write with longer ones as Faulkner. I’m writing my films with long sentence-frames.”

Leon Cakoff, a Brazilian of Armenian origin is well-known as a film critic, writer and filmmaker, and as the director of the Sao Paulo International Film Festival (also known as the Monstra). “I used to say there is no bad film. After some time it may be useful for somebody”, he says. “When I became а film critic, I realized normally you have prejudice against popular art, you have to keep distance to have your opinion. I realized how this prejudice can go against your own opinion.”

Fatih Akin, son of Turkish parent, was born in Hamburg, studied film at the University of Fine Arts Of Hamburg, graduating in 2000. From 1993 to 2004 he worked with Wüste Filmproduktion, Hamburg. In 2003, he founded Corazon International Film Production Company.   

“I watch arthouse movies, Chinese and American ones. I try to be always in search. I had a success with my movies in the arthouse style. But life doesn’t consist only of art house. I try never to become the slave of my success. Art belongs to different interpretations. I need a place where I can put my anger. The anger ends up in my scripts. I like the flirt of genre and arthouse. I like making films for everybody. This is my ideal,” he says.

The 7th Golden Apricot International Film Festival holds 3 competition programs: International feature films, International Documentaries and Armenian Panorama. These 3 competitions are judged by 5 juries – including the FIPRECSI and Ecumenical juries.

Golden Apricot for the Best Feature Film went to the Turkish director Reha Erdem for the film “Kosmos”. Golden Apricot for the Best Documentary Film went to Pavel Kostomarov for the film “Together”. Golden Apricot for the Best Armenian Film went to Arman Yeritsyan and Inna Sahakyan for the film “The Last Tightrope Dancer” in Armenia. The FPRESCI Jury Award went to Jasmila Žbanić for the film “On the Path.”

The ecumenical Jury Award went to Suren Babayan for the film “Don’t Look in the Mirror” and the Special Recommendation to Aleksei Popogrebsky for the film “How I Ended This Summer”. The Hrant Matevosyan Prize and the Best Short Film Award by the British Council Armenia received Marat Sargsyan for the short film “Lernavan”.

One of the main events of the cultural program of Golden Apricot Yerevan 7th International Film Festival was a “Jazz-Cinema” competition, which was held during the festival from July 11 to 17 at the Charles Aznavour Square in front of Moscow Cinema.

The organizer of the competition held with Golden Apricot was the famous jazz master Levon Malkhasyan.
Everything has been done to enjoy the biggest, the most cherished and loved cultural week in Yerevan.