Currently, the president of the fund named after Rolan Bicov is Armen Medvedeyev, who took the initiative of organizing the Children’s film international festival and this is the second year. The festival is taking place at the “Moscow” cinema in Yerevan, but not many people are informed about the festival and there aren’t many viewers. The main principle of the fund and the festival is to preserve and encourage children’s film production, which is rarely profitable. By providing access to the movie theatres to the children, the fund is also working on educating the children because there is a major issue concerning the education and discipline of children with nice films with a happy ending in the post-Soviet region.
In one of the interviews given by the widow of Rolan Bikov, actress Elena Sanayeva, she said: “The fund was a burden on Bicov’s shoulders. At first it seemed as though everything was going to be fabulous, but then came problems.” For great director and actor Rolan Bicov, children have always been the most grateful audience and their expectations and imagination have reflected the complex cataclysms of the time. Today, American cartoons and comedies are the only way for children to get acquainted with children’s films; according to R. Bicov, those cartoons and comedies are also good in that there are “good” and “bad” characters, there is a struggle between good and evil. Good children’s films aren’t always for the children; they’re for everyone. “Can you say, for example, that there exists a sun for children? No, of course not; the sun shines for everyone, but the children are under that sun and they understand things more deeply than adults do. All films become children’s films when a child watches them. Our lives are childish because we are surrounded by children,” this is what Rolan Bicov had said, whose work continues with the fund named after him. The fund producing films and organizing festivals is helping cinema production. The festival in Armenia, which is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Armenia and the First Lady of Armenia Bella Kocharyan, must give Armenians the chance to watch different films and meet the well-known guests, but it’s too early to consider it a festival. The proof of that are the empty movie theatres. Director of the fund’s Armenian branch Nune Manukyan and the rest of the organizers say that the festival doesn’t need the support of the mass media or attract viewers. Journalists face a barrier for getting information. Perhaps journalists have to fully investigate to get acquainted with the festival. The viewer must ask for a program and then Xerox that program because selling the programs ends in itself for the event organizers. When one tries to get information about the days of the classes given by the masters, they ask you: “Why do you need it?” You get the impression that the event organizers are doing everything they can to have less people come to the movie theatres. I don’t understand the reason; you need to have people come to view the movies, especially since the films are for children and you don’t need to put in a lot of effort to get children to come to the movies. During an interview with well-known Russian cartoonist Garry Bardin, there were only twenty people in the theatre, mainly students who didn’t stay for the showing of the cartoon. The students quickly left the theatre when the professors who had brought them there left the building.
Garry Bardin-the “professional child”
Garry Bardin is a breakthrough cartoonist, a winner of many awards and a great conversationalist. His characters are made out of plastering, matches, ropes, wires and at first sight, it looks like the characters are made out of useless but flexible material for filming. “I’m an actor by profession. First, I was reading the voices for cartoon characters and then I decided to write scripts. Then I thought about producing my own cartoons. The most interesting thing is that I started to film.” Bardin pays a lot of attention to the accompaniment of voices. The movie “Chucha” shown in Yerevan is a a three-part cartoon with the accompaniment of jazz and classical music. The main character of the cartoon is a happy black nanny/miracle worker with a childish imagination, living and obeying the laws created by children; the character is adventurous and very happy. “Chucha is the type of friend who has to be with the child. Cartoons are like a game, which I am always ready to play. Cartoons are like brain games for me. I often see my future cartoons in my dreams. That’s how “The Flying Boat” was produced,” says Bardin. He comes up with his characters on his own, draws and films them and doesn’t approve the principle of working on computers. “I have computer in my studio, which I use for forming budgets. I like to draw by hand; it gives me a lot of energy.” According to him, the doll is the same human being made out of the same skeleton, it raises and lowers its arm just like the human being. “Besides that, it’s easy to work with the doll; it doesn’t respond to the director like the actor”.
For G. Bardin, it’s important to understand just how people treat them. With that in mind, he started the production of the “Clumsy Chick” based on the famous fable by Anderson. “I don’t like using the word cartoon that much. My films can be considered as taped films. The film “Clumsy Chick” is going to be a full-length film where there will be more than 500 dolls. I can only promise one thing-the clumsy chick will turn into a beautiful swan. I will come to Yerevan with this film a couple of years later. You Armenians grow up, get educated and I will still film,” said one of the greatest cartoonists of his time. Armenia reminds Bardin of his youth because he served in the Armenian army. He said that he has a desire to meet his colleagues. “Armenian cartoons have always been unique. I love cartoonist Robert Sahakyants’s work and I hope that the event organizers will organize a meeting with him,” he said. I wasn’t able to interview the cartoonist longer because that wasn’t of interest to the event organizers. For them, propagandizing children’s films and organizing interviews with the guests is not modern. They have organized a festival just to “organize a festival”. They don’t even want to invite students studying at the Institute of Cinema and Theatre to attend lectures given by the masters. Perhaps that’s a pain for them.