The “Golden Apricot” film festival is over. The event organizers awarded the winners and organized the closing ceremony with live coverage.
No matter how much we talk about the the festival being first and foremost about good films and human communication, we must mention that the festival is also about a framework and borders that are drawn by the event organizers. They choose the jury members and participants, and as well as set up the programs for visits and competitions. The frameworks of this year were rather narrow, and only a couple of films and the visits of a couple of directors received feedback. Usually, directors, film critics and people involved in film distribution come to Armenia for only two days and, as a rule, don’t make it in time to watch the Armenian films and don’t have any discourse with Armenian experts in the field (we don’t count the press conferences because only the journalists who want to get their job done fast and go home go to those conferences). For many foreign cinematographers, Armenia is simply an exotic place for cinema development. They have no perspective where they are, simply that they are on vacation and receive great hospitality, because nobody requires anything more than that from them. Perhaps the event organizers don’t give much importance to the creation of future ties, or perhaps they think that they are not authorized to do that, but it is clear that the people coming to Armenia are the people whom we could have “used” better. When I say “use” I don’t mean taking them out to “eat and drink”. By “use” I mean to get acquainted with their experience and knowledge. Nobody is interested in the representatives of organizations involved in the spread of international cinema and cinema storages. You got the impression that for “HyeFilm”, the Union of Cinematographers or the National Cinema Center, the guests of “Golden Apricot” were nothing, that they are doing it all for themselves; they know what to do and don’t need to create new bridges for creative work. The founders of the festival, in their turn, think that they are bringing films and guests and they shouldn’t worry about the rest. In the end, what we get is an unnatural and absurd situation where we have a festival, but it is not for anyone. One of the reasons for that is that besides the lack of interested cinematographers, there is no audience. This is the fourth year that the two movie theatres of Yerevan have been selling tickets for the films at 1500 drams. All movie-goers have to pay that amount, even if that film lasts 10 minutes and is taped in Armenia. That amount is fixed, both for wide-ranging American blockbusters and short-length documentaries taped in the faraway villages of Armenia. We get a paradox: we want to have an audience to watch the films, yet we don’t give students or real movie-lovers the chance to watch the films. We say ‘buy the ticket, that’s how the festival runs, that is how it is done in all countries…’ and we forget that we are not a big film-producing country and there are only a few good directors and good audiences. The Armenian film-lover simply can’t watch a couple of movies a day, because he has to at least be an oligarch to do that. In our country, as is known, oligarchs rarely go to watch movies, and short-length documentary films have never interested them. It is understandable when movie theatres sell tickets for big premieres, but our national cinema is not going for the big premieres; we need to help it by bringing the audience and create the artificial, “free-of-charge” noise. According to the incomprehensible custom, “Golden Apricot” distributes tickets to whomever it wants, sends 100 tickets to government officials for the showing of each film, and invites various state activists and authority figures. They also don’t come because they could care less about going to the movies. The tickets are given for no reason, while the number of people increases. Then the festival participants/film directors are forced to present their films foreseen for big auditoriums to only twenty people. It is natural to hear the expression of many people when they say “So, Armenians don’t watch movies.” Those who want to watch films and even find the money needed to purchase a ticket are simply heroes. Those who were able to communicate with the film directors were double heroes. If there was any professional contact with the festival guests this year, it was done thanks to the Armenian enthusiasts who knew which interesting person had arrived and tried to meet with him or her; that is, of course, if the festival schedule fit in with that person’s schedule.
However, many of the guests were ready, even happy, when they had the opportunity to talk. It is just that there were not many occasions for that. The organizational committee of the festival took the two-day visitors to Geghard, brought them to a press conference, and then sent them back to their homelands. When the foreign participants expressed the desire to communicate with the Armenians, it turned out that there was no time because they were on a tight schedule and were getting late for the airplane or another dinner party. In the end, the festival guests came and went without understanding who we Armenians are and what we want from them. Perhaps we should ask that question to cinematographers, film producers, correspondents of the Ministry of Culture, and the directors of private studios and movie theatres, or at least they should try to ask themselves that question.
Award-winners
The best film of this year’s “Golden Apricot” film festival was Ulrich Zaydel’s Austro-French movie “Import-Export”. The award for best film in the “Armenian Panorama” category went to “Screamers” – a film about the Armenian Genocide produced in Great Britain through the combined efforts of director Carla Garabedian and the famous rock group “System of a Down”. It is a very touching and professional film, and there has been a lot of talk about it. Talking about the tragedy and the careful and mincing behavior of the political activists is a very honest and modern thing to do nowadays. As she received the award, Carla Garabedian said that she was overjoyed and that she is getting ready to share the 1 million dram prize with her friends living in Armenia. The best documentary film was the only Armenian film presented in that category and enlisted in two categories (also in the “Armenian Panorama” category where it placed second and received the “Silver Apricot” award). Forgetting about the value of the winning film for a moment, it could be mentioned that that was a very unusual thing – if there is a list of Armenian films, why is the film being nominated in two categories? Why that film in particular? The national film contest is already a panorama of Armenian films, and giving the privilege to one particular film is at least strange and doesn’t support the author, rather the opposite; it stands in the way and forces him to think about subjectivity. This refers to the film “Human Stories of War and Peace” by founder of the “Bars Media” documentary film studio, Vardan Hovhannisyan. The film was constantly being reminded of and receiving awards. The film received practically all of the possible awards (as well as the awards of the ecumenical jury and the “FiPress” film critics).
In fact, the film “Screamers” also had the privilege of being represented more than once, as it was enlisted in two programs and won in both (it placed first in the Armenian films category and second in the documentary films contest, while it received an award of encouragement from the ecumenical jury). Those two films put together received eight awards, which is rather ridiculous. It seems as though there were no other films of the “Golden Apricot” film festival that drew attention. Meanwhile, it is not like that; there were good films and there were very interesting film directors, for whom perhaps the glorification of these two films was humiliating. What good is this festival when only two films are noted and awarded?
As the representatives of different festivals noted, this is usually not the case. There is no law for presenting national cinema in a special category during festivals, and if the national film production is included in the list of foreign movies, then it is taken out of the national films list. It is noteworthy that while talking about the programs and the mechanisms used to give the awards, we don’t mean the quality and the value of the winning films. Vardan Hovhannisyan’s film deserves praise and remembrance, but when we continue to “strike the eye” every chance we get, we can get the fully opposite, unhealthy feedback. The heroes of the film “Human Stories…” would not really be happy about that.