The closing ceremony of the 18th Golden Apricot International Film Festival was held at the “Ararat” Museum of the Yerevan Brandy Company on October 9. During the closing ceremony, the jury announced the winners.

Pebbles (dir. Vinothraj P.S., India) won Golden Apricot in International Full-Length Competition. The Silver Apricot was awarded to Downstream to Kinshasa (dir. Dieudo Hamadi, Congo/ France/ Belgium). A New Old Play (dir. Qiu Jiongjiong, Hong Kong/ France) gained jury’s special mention.

The FIPRESCI Award, named after Peter van Bueren, was awarded to Taming the Garden (dir. Salomé Jashi, Switzerland/ Germany/ Georgia).

From left: Hovig Hagopian, Christine Haroutounian, Ovsanna Shekoyan

Golden Apricot in Apricot Stone competition was awarded to The World (dir. Christine Haroutounian, USA/ Armenia). Silver Apricot in the same competition won Storgetnya (dir. Hovig Hagopian, France/ Armenia). Special Award after Gennadi Melkonyan was awarded Handstand (dir. Ovsanna Shekoyan, Armenia).

Cornell Mundruzo, Hungarian theater and film director, laureate of dozens of other prestigious film festivals in Cannes, Locarno was this year’s president of the Golden Apricot 18th Yerevan IFF jury. The jury of the feature film competition consisted of producer François D’Artemare, director of the Krakow International Film Festival Krzysztof Gierat, film critic Larisa Malyukova and composer Robert Amirkhanyan.

• Christine Haroutounian
• Hovig Hagopian

The Apricot Stone regional short film competition jury consisted of actress Romanna Lobach, author of this year’s “Golden Apricot” posters, visual artist Vahram Muratyan, and festival director Philippe Jalladeau.

The FIPRESCI jury consisted of film critics Alexander Melyan, Dominic Schmid, Mike Naafs.