DON ASKARIAN: MY FILMS AND PHOTOS MUST SPEAK INSTEAD OF ME

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.01.2010 20:58 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On January 21 exhibition of the film director,
producer and photographer Don Askarian opened at the Narekatsy Center
of Arts.

"This exhibition is an excellent starting point for educational
programs of our center," artistic director of the center Levon
Iskenyan said. In addition to the photo exhibition films of Don
Askarian, including his new work "Father" will be shown from 21 to 25
January. The Narekatsy Center of Arts also organizes workshop between
23 and 25 January.

Don Askarian was born in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh. In 1967
he went to Moscow and studied history and art. He worked as an
assistant-director and film critic for a year after his study. In
1975-1977 Don Askarian was imprisoned. In 1978 he emigrated from the
USSR to West Berlin. For the last 25 years he has lived and worked
in Germany, The Netherlands and in Armenia, where he founded his
own film companies. He is a prize-winner at several international
film festivals.

In 1996, Don Askarian published his book "The Dangerous Light". Every
year the interest to his unique films grow up. More and more film
festivals come to honor Don Askarian with retrospectives. Serious
TV-stations like ARD, WDR, ZDF, Channel 4, Arte, but also Belgian,
Greek, Swiss, Slovakian, Armenian etc. TV Channels are constant
co-producers and buyers of all his films. The films of Don Askarian
were sold and broadcast world wide about 80 times. Don Askarian,
honored with a Harvard Film Archive retrospective, is considered the
greatest Armenian filmmaker (but he is Russian-German-Dutch too).

In 2004, he received the Golden Camera Award for Life Achievement
at Int. ART Film Festival, Slovakia. It turns out to be clearer what
Hans-Werner Dannowski, the president of Interfilm (between 1989-2004),
meant in 1992: "Time will pass until we recognize that Don Askarian
is one of the most important filmmakers of our times. His movies will
take up the time they need. Finally the films will have their success
not with lies and assimilations but with truth." The retrospectives
and special screenings around the world, on TV and important film
festivals reflect it, mirror the growing interest in Don Askarian’s
films followed by a broad fascination by the audience.