NATIONAL GALLERY CONTINUES SHOWING SAMPLES OF CLASSICAL CINEMATOGRAPHY

Noyan Tapan
May 16 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. 26 films by famous French film director
Jean-Luc Godard will be shown in May-June at the cinema hall of the
Armenian National Gallery. As Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed
by Melik Karapetian, the author and organizer of cinema programs,
employee of the Educational Department of the Armenian National
Gallery, in April he prepared and presented to the cinema spectators
another two interesting programs: 10 films on jazz by Ken Burns and
8 films by famous film-maker of the 70-s of the previous century,
one of the founder of the independent film John Cassavetes. After
the Gallery’s reopening in 2004, Melik Karapetian organized the
first program where he presented 6 Armenian mute films. American
films brought from the National Museum of Washington were shown
in September of the same year. A separate subject film program
has been prepared for each month since 2005 March: documentary and
retrospective reviews on art are organized every Sunday and Wednesday
at the National Gallery. The entrance is free for all those who are
fond of European and classical films. “In this issue the National
Gallery is greatly assisted by the foreign embassies in Armenia, but
the main material is prepared by me from my personal film archives,”
M.Karapetian said. He said that at present he has 1700 films, which
are presented to the spectators by different subject programs 10
months running. “The idea of showing these films occured to me in
the years when no festivals were organized in Armenia yet and there
were no cinemas that could import and show real films for certain
layers of the society,” M.Karapetian said. According to him, their
main spectators are young people, students, cinematographic figures
and finally visitors appreciating the real cinema.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress