HULIQ, SC
Aug 29 2009

The Golden Apricot Film Festival In Nagorno Karabakh

The `Golden Apricot on Wheels’ project within the `Golden Apricot’
International Film Festival for the second time visited Nagorno
Karabakh in August 19-23 this year. The Nagorno Karabakh `Golden
Apricot’ opened with Sergey Parajanov’s `The Color of Pomegranate’ in
the House of Veterans, located in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno
Karabakh.

At the opening of the project, the Minister of Culture of Nagorno
Karabakh Republic, Narine Aghbalyan said, that Golden Apricot made it
possible for the local audience to participate in important cultural
activities. `If we wish the second Armenian state to experience a
cultural rebirth as well, we should ensure such actions to continue
and become a lifestyle’. Referring to `The Color of Pomegranate’, the
Vice Director of the Festival, Ara Khanjyan, mentioned that it was the
40th anniversary of the film release and the 85th anniversary of
Parajanov’s birthday this year.

The films of the movie festival have been shown in the hall of
`Narekatsi’ Artists’ Union in the city-fortress of Shushi, Nagorno
Karabakh. The `Border’, a film by Harutyun Khachatryan, was shown in
line with other films, and the film director was present himself at
the premiere in Stepanakert.

The founding director of the `Golden Apricot’ festival, a film
director Harutyun Khachatryan has appreciated the local audience. `I
have seen many good, interested eyes, such that are rare even in the
capital of Armenia, Yerevan’. He thinks that film making is an
important tool, however unused by our side, while other countries and
nations have appeared smarter in this matter.

`The `Golden Apricot’ is in reality not a festival but a program, call
it strategic, cultural or national, whose goal is to turn the language
of cinema into a means of telling the others about us, of taking our
history into the world¦ Years ago, while working in the Foreign
Ministry, I developed a viewpoint on what is to be turned into state
politics and what is to be left for the private. Unfortunately, at
that time I became a laughing stock, but now everything has changed’,
says the festival director. He is sure that one film festival can tell
Europe more about Armenia than several Foreign Ministries together. He
also acknowledges that, unlike Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, which is an
inconvenient site for holding the festival for the reason of `clash of
too many interests’, the people in marzes (regions) are more free and
open for accepting the spiritual films.

In the frames of the festival one could also see the `Autumn’, a film
by hamshen Armenian O. Alper,; `In Toros Roslins’ Footsteps’ and `The
Vandals of the 20th Century’ by the scenario of S. Gharabaghtsyan , as
well as Karen Hovhannisyan’s `The Ghost’.

By Gohar Hakobyan, Yerevan-Stepanakert
For Aravot Daily
Translated by Sara Margaryan