News and Press Releases

Golden Apricot’s cooperation with Foreign Embassies and International Organization continues

July 1, 2011 18:18

The cooperation of Golden Apricot International Film Festival with the Embassies of Foreign Countries to Armenia is being continued and enlarged. As the artistic director of the Festival, Susanna Harutyunyan, mentioned during the press conference on 1 July, a great number of Golden Apricot guests, as well as films are invited at the partial expanses of these international institutions, giving an opportunity to the Armenian audience to watch the best artworks of cinematography.

The Embassies of the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Brasilia and Russian Federation, as well as a number of international organizations have become traditional and reliable partners of Golden Apricot. For the first time the Festival established partnerships with the Israeli and Australian Embassies. The cooperation with such international structures as Goethe Institut and British Council are in progress.

All the films of the “Risorgimento 150” Program, devoted to the 150th anniversary of Italian reunification, have been provided by the Italian Embassy. The retrospective of the renowned French director Bertrand Tavernier will be shown due to the support of the French Embassy. German Embassy and Goethe Institut are sponsoring the participation of four films in the competition program, as well as the demonstration of the Festival closing film – the 3D work of the world famous director Wim Wenders – “Pina”.

According to the Ambassador of the Polish Embassy to Armenia, Maciej Falkowski, who also took part in the press-conference, the traditional Polish day of the Festival will take place on 12 July this year.

Speaking about the support of the Polish Embassy, Maciej Falkowski said: “The renown Polish director Wojciech Marczewski will take part in Golden Apricot 2011. His three films will be shown in the retrospective of the director. Moreover, about ten short films of Andrzej Wajda’s apprentices will be demonstrated”.

The manager of Eurasia Partnership Foundation Gevorg Ter-Gabriyelyan mentioned, that the major aim of their support is to organize the dialogue of Armenian and Turkish film-makers.

“We were oft criticized that there were no real actions taken after the previous meetings of the directors. But there were suddenly five films presented this April in Istanbul. Now we are supporting the shooting of another one – the film by Lusin Dink narrating about William Saroyan”, - Gevorg Ter-Gabriyelyan said.

The manager of the Armenian office of British Council, Arevik Saribekyan, stated, that a number of British experts will visit Yerevan and organize seminars-workshops in the frames of the Golden Apricot. There will take place lectures to “Management of Culture”. Moreover, Saribekyan told about the new prize of the Festival: “British council founded a new prize – “The New Name of The Festival”, which will be awarded to the most active and promising young cinematographer. The winner will gain the chance of participation in the Bristol film festival”.

It’s the second year of the cooperation between the Brazil Embassy and GAIFF. Expressing his satisfaction on this occasion the Ambassador of the Brazil Federative Republic, Floriano Regis, mentioned that Brazil is quite well represented in the Festival this year.

“ ‘Waste Land’, which won the Oscar this year will take part in the competition of documentaries. You will watch and be convinced that the film is worth of it”, - Regis said. Susanna Harutyunyan added, that the 8th Golden Apricot was designated by a new partnership: it is the first time, when the Interstate Humanitarian Cooperation Fund of CIS supports the Festival. The efforts of the last have resulted in the CIS 20th Anniversary Program. Ten films will be shown and guests from more than twenty countries (Russian, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan and Moldova) are invited to take part in this Program.

The 8th Golden Apricot International Film Festival will take place from 10th till 17th of July due to the support of the general sponsor of the Festival VivaCell-MTS corporation and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia as a state support.