Month: May 2008

ALROSA HALTS DIAMOND SHIPMENTS TO ARMENIA

Interfax News Agency
May 22 2008
Russia

The agreement under which Russian diamond-mining monopoly Alrosa
(RTS: ALRS) is supposed to ship rough diamonds to Armenia in 2008
has been temporarily suspended, Economics Minister Nerses Yeritsian
said Wednesday.

The first shipment of rough diamonds was delivered to Armenia last
year, but then shipments did not continue because a problem arose
with Russian customs concerning rough diamond exports under tolling
arrangements, he said.

The Russian authorities planned to resolve this problem last year,
but the issue dragged on due to the presidential elections in Russia,
Yeritsian said.

"I hope that in the summer we will manage to resolve this problem
with Russia. We’re prepared to fly to Moscow today," he said.

Alrosa last December signed agreements with four Armenian diamond
cutters to supply $28 million-$30 million worth of rough diamonds
in 2008. At the time, Alrosa president Sergei Vybornov said that the
first batch worth $1 million had already been delivered to Armenia.

Production of cut diamonds in Armenia tumbled by more than half in
2007, to 43.2 billion dram.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE WILL PERFORM MONITORING ON THE CONTACT LINE BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA

DEFENSE and SECURITY
May 23, 2008 Friday
Russia

In accordance with the mandate of the personal envoy of the acting
OSCE Chair, the OSCE will perform a new monitoring on the contact line
between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia near Garakhanbeili
village on May 22, reports the press service of the Defense Ministry of
Azerbaijan. The press service adds that field aides to the personal
envoy of the OSCE Chair Imre Palatinus and Antal Herdic will do
monitoring on the side of Azerbaijan.

RUSSIAN YOUTH GROUP DISPUTES GEORGIAN ELECTION RESULTS IN ETHNIC ARMENIAN AREA

Interfax News Agency
May 23, 2008 Friday
Russia

Moscow, 23 May: The Nashi movement, whose representatives received
accreditation to observe the Georgian parliamentary election on 21 May,
intends to challenge the results of voting in one electoral district,
Interfax was told at the movement press service on Friday [23 May].

"In support of our demand, we pointed to numerous violations of the
election process, including ballot-box stuffing, violations of the
inking procedure and other breaches that have prevented voters from
expressing their will appropriately," the Nashi press service said
in a statement.

The document has been sent to the district electoral commission in
the [mainly ethnic Armenian-populated] town of Akhalkalaki, the press
service added. [Passage omitted]

"In general, one can speak of large-scale fraud in this district, which
became possible, among other things, because of the total absence of
opposition observers," the head of the delegation of Nashi observers,
Konstantin Goloskokov, told Interfax. [Passage omitted]

"During the Georgian parliamentary election our observers operated
across the entire country. A huge number of irregularities were
detected at polling stations. Almost none of the polling stations had
lists of parties standing in the election. Voters were transported to
polling stations by force and people who had not lived in Georgia for
a long time and did not have the country’s citizenship were allowed
to vote," the press service said.

Nashi’s evaluation differs radically from the position of international
observers, who did not detect serious irregularities during the
Georgian parliamentary election.

WHERE EGOYAN’S TRUTH LIES TODAY
[email protected]

Montreal Gazette
Canwest News Service
May 23 2008
Canada

CANNES, France – Atom Egoyan was watching his movie Adoration the
other day and wondering why one of the film’s closing images – of a
cell phone being thrown into a fire – seemed so powerful.

"And when I was watching I went, ‘Well, duh,’" the Toronto-based Egoyan
said: the cell phone has a key role in the movie. It’s an instrument
that is used as a weapon to kill some of the film’s characters: it
has an association as a weapon of destruction. "I never thought of
that when I was shooting it," he added. "You look at it and it seems
so intentional, but that’s the beauty of making a film in a smaller
way, is that you do have the freedom to just let yourself go with
certain impulses."

Egoyan expected he would have more such epiphanies when Adoration had
its gala screening at the Cannes Film Festival this week, where it is
in competition for the Palme d’Or. He wrote, produced and directed
the movie, but the fact that it still has the ability to surprise
him is one of the signature characteristics of his cinema.

I just respond to these things in an intuitive way and at a certain
point it feels right, but I don’t analyze it too much while I’m making
it," he said in an interview.

Adoration tells the story of a teenager (newcomer Devon Bostick) who
is given an assignment by his teacher (Arsinee Khanjian, Egoyan’s
wife and frequent collaborator) to translate a news story about a
terrorist attack. The boy re-imagines the story as something that
actually happened to him and takes it to the Internet, where he
assumes the persona of a boy orphaned by an airplane bomb.

The movie allows Egoyan to examine such issues as reality versus
truth, one of his frequent themes, and in a low-budget way that is
more comfortable for him. It’s his first movie since his 2005 Cannes
release Where The Truth Lies, a more conventional mystery story –
and a larger-budget project, with Hollywood stars Kevin Bacon and
Colin Firth.

"When you’re writing, at a certain point the stew feels it’s ready
to cook. And then you just have to start cooking. And that cooking
starts with the shooting and the casting and through the editing and
when you’re adding music, and just trying to find a shape. I love
that. I love that about filmmaking."

Beyond a certain budget, though, the script becomes "a very clear
industrial blueprint for this prototype you have to create. And all
the people who are invested in it expect you produce that thing you
read." Where The Truth Lies couldn’t change because it was locked in:
at a press conference later in the day, Egoyan said he now thinks
the music was much too loud in that film, perhaps because he was
directing a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the same time.

A movie like Adoration is more fluid, and Egoyan said he hoped people
were still awake enough – Adoration was showing on the ninth night of
Cannes – to read its various connections and themes. Told that some
of the festival audience had been up past midnight the night before
watching the four-and-a-half hour epic Che, Egoyan groaned.

Adoration had its genesis when Egoyan went to a Toronto high
school with a film program and became interested in the adolescent
immersion in the Internet and how easily users can assume identities
online. "They have to assume other personalities to hold attention,
and it’s very fluid and natural," he said. "You can find yourself
emotionally connected to something that in the real world might not
have much purchase."

It creates something that, while it doesn’t have the artistry of
movie-making, finds immediate distribution and creates the phenomenon
of YouTube celebrities. Egoyan himself made his breakthrough in 1984
with Next of Kin, a debut feature that found theatrical distribution
around the world. That’s not such a big deal today.

"People have millions of hits . . . that to me is what’s shocking. At
one point the idea of international distribution was something that
was so inconceivable for independently produced programs, and now
it’s banal. Everyone gets that."

LA FAMILLE ET LE MONDE SELON ATOM EGOYAN

Le Temps
23 mai 2008
Suisse

COMPETITION. Le cineaste canadien revient en grande forme avec
"Adoration". A point pour mettre tout le monde d’accord?

Il etait temps! Après un serieux coup d’arret, dû a une journee perdue
pour cause de Che (lire ci-dessous), la competition cannoise s’est
a nouveau hissee en zone palmable grâce a Atom Egoyan. Celui qu’on
n’attendait plus, après les relatives deceptions ici meme d’Ararat
et de La Verite nue, a en effet presente avec Adoration un film
qui pourrait mettre tout le monde d’accord: un de plus consacre a
la famille, decidement le thème dominant de cette selection, mais
pas moins ouvert sur le monde pour autant, selon le souhait exprime
par le president du jury Sean Penn. Pour l’auteur de Family Viewing,
Canadien d’origine armenienne, il s’agit aussi d’une sorte de film
somme, qui reunit le meilleur de son oeuvre.

Commencons par les bemols, puisque ce film aurait pour l’heure encore
quelque peine a trouver distributeur. Depourvu d’arguments de vente
faciles, Adoration se presente comme un nouveau puzzle alambique,
pauvre en action et cette fois meme en sexe, qui a tout pour derouter
le spectateur. Mais une fois ces règles acceptees, difficile de trouver
la moindre fausse note dans cette histoire d’enfant du cyberâge qui
doit assimiler un lourd heritage parental, symbolise par le violon
de sa mère musicienne. Et, surtout, difficile de ne pas se sentir
implique dans un film qui englobe la famille et le monde, en passant
par les nouvelles technologies et l’art.

Ancre dans l’adolescence, âge de toutes les incertitudes, Adoration
est l’histoire d’un deuil: celui de la famille ideale, symbolisee par
la crèche de Noël. Mais pour ce qui est de la religion, c’est deja
nettement plus complique, vu les "rois mages" qui se sont penches
sur le berceau de Simon. Il y a d’abord son oncle Tom, mouton
noir de la famille qui l’a recueilli après la disparition de ses
parents dans un accident. Puis son grand-père, qui a tout deforme
par la rogne tenace qu’il en a concue contre son père. Mais il y a
aussi Sabine, devenue sa professeure de francais au collège. Lorsque
cette dernière encourage Simon a presenter des elucubrations sur son
histoire familiale devant sa classe, puis dans un atelier theâtral,
tout deborde. Car en racontant que son père etait un terroriste qui
aurait tente d’envoyer sa mère enceinte se faire exploser dans un
avion a destination d’Israël, Simon provoque sur Internet des reactions
passionnees qui font boule de neige. Mais où se cache donc la verite?

On le voit, après La Verite nue (dont le titre original Where the
Truth Lies pouvait se lire soit comme "Où gît la verite" soit "Où
la verite ment"), Egoyan reste fidèle a ses obsessions. Tout son art
consiste en une tentative de decodage de la complexite croissante du
monde, dont nous sommes le produit. En faisant du père Sami un juif
de Bethleem et de Sabine une fille de Beyrouth devastee, c’est tout le
Moyen-Orient qui s’invite dans cette famille canadienne, tandis que la
fiction elaboree par le fils paraît heritee du 11 septembre 2001. Mais,
si le forum de discussion sur Internet resume bien toutes les positions
simplificatrices nees de cet evenement, la verite est encore ailleurs:
engendree par un mensonge familial (la version du grand-père) puis
remise en question grâce a celui de la professeure (un double jeu
magnifiquement interprete par Arsinee Khanjian, Mme Egoyan a la ville).

Avec la culpabilite, l’argent, le jeu et les images encore jetes dans
l’equation de ce trouble heritage, au fiston – et au spectateur avec
lui – de se debrouiller avec tout ca! Autant dire que l’experience
devient captivante, d’autant plus qu’Egoyan s’y entend pour rendre
incarnee cette fable a priori très theorique. Moins qu’Arnaud
Desplechin, peut-etre, et certains ne manqueront pas d’amoindrir
Adoration au nom du magnifique Conte de Noël de ce dernier. La
manière Egoyan, ce serait plutôt de laisser cohabiter en permanence
le spectacle et sa superstructure, ce qui comporte aussi ses
avantages. Quant au violon maternel, subtilement transforme en symbole
de la reconciliation avec un père meconnu, difficile de trouver plus
belle conclusion. Comme chez Desplechin, une note finale bienvenue
qui lui ouvre tous les espoirs pour l’heure du palmarès.

Encadre: "Che", la honte a Cannes

Steven Soderbergh se fourvoie pendant 4h28.

Par Thierry Jobin

Rarement un film donne-t-il autant l’impression de perdre un bout
de vie. Quatre heures et demie de vie. Presente en competition,
Che, portrait fleuve signe Steven Soderbergh multiplie en effet
tous les ecueils: inutile et meme contestable pour toute personne
qui s’interesse un peu a l’histoire et a l’engagement politique;
et sans aucune ligne pour les cinephiles qui noteront, notamment,
que le plan final de cette curee (un plan subjectif ridicule où la
camera tombe et meurt avec son personnage) est le seul du film qui
se met a la place de son personnage. Mais que ne ferait-on pas pour
impressionner le spectateur quand on n’a rien a lui dire?

Parmi les rares a avoir remporte la Palme d’or avec un premier film
(Sexe, Mensonges et Video), Soderbergh surfe depuis deux decennies
sur cet adoubement et signe, une nouvelle fois, un ouvrage surfait qui
ressemble a sa filmographie truffee d’experimentations (Schizopolis,
Bubble) et de superproductions (la trilogie Ocean’s 11, 12 et 13):
sans point de vue, mais qui veut bien faire. D’où ce film du non-choix
qui perore doctement, s’attarde sur les scènes d’action et parvient
par exemple a passer sous silence le fait, etabli, que l’execution
du Che avait ete commandee par les Etats-Unis.

En deux parties au cinema

Interprete par un Benicio del Toro dont l’essentiel du jeu consiste a
changer de coupe de cheveux, Che sortira cet automne en deux parties
(The Argentine et Guerilla), espacees de deux mois. Cette cesure,
destinee surtout a faire payer deux fois l’entree pour un film qui
a coûte 70millions de dollars, casse l’unique interet du projet:
alors que The Argentine raconte la victoire cubaine, Guerilla evoque
la debâcle bolivienne et la fin des ideaux. Autant dire que les films
ne fonctionnent qu’en echo direct, le positif et le negatif.

Quant a savoir ce que retiendront les spectateurs, en particulier les
jeunes, il vaut mieux ne pas s’y attarder: comme pour plaider coupable
a son film Traffic deja soupconne d’etre le premier film pro-Bush,
Soderbergh delivre un message qui ratatine tous les ideaux passes et
a venir.

Encadre: Garrel de père en fils

"La Frontière de l’aube" de Philippe Garrel a divise les
critiques. Comme prevu.

Par Norbert Creutz

Le cinema de Philippe Garrel, enfant de la Nouvelle Vague et de Mai
68 (sans oublier du comedien Maurice Garrel) est affaire de flash
ou d’accoutumance. Quintessence du "nombrilisme" francais selon ses
detracteurs, scrutateur sans pareil de l’intime pour les autres,
il passe mal la rampe en festival, sauf a Venise, où l’on a fini par
s’y faire. Rien de tel a Cannes, où La Frontière de l’aube a donne
lieu a un typique affrontement entre sifflets et applaudissements.

Film intimiste

En splendide noir et blanc de rigueur, l’auteur des Hautes solitudes
et de Sauvage innocence y revient encore une fois sur sa propre
experience, largement romancee. Cela donne l’histoire de Francois
(Louis Garrel, fils du cineaste), jeune photographe qui vit une
histoire d’amour avec Carole (Laura Smet), une actrice perturbee
qui finit par se suicider peu de temps après leur rupture. Un an
plus tard, alors qu’il vit en couple avec Eve (Clementine Poidatz)
et attend d’elle un enfant, le fantôme de Carole vient le hanter,
au point de lui faire perdre la tete…

En pointilles, on reconnaîtra une manière pour l’auteur de digerer
ses relations avec les tragiques Nico (deja au coeur de plusieurs
films precedents) et Jean Seberg. Mais l’essentiel n’est bien sûr
pas dans l’anecdote "people". Depuis Les Amants reguliers (2004),
il reside sans doute dans l’idee un peu folle de vouloir revisiter sa
jeunesse a travers son propre fils. Cela donne paradoxalement un film
très doux (mais pas autant que Two Lovers de James Gray, l’autre film
intimiste de la selection) malgre sa grande violence affective. Et,
de manière plus previsible, un film hante par tout le passe, amours
et cinema confondus, au point de flirter avec le fantastique.

A Cannes, tout ceci aura fait paraître Garrel fatalement deconnecte du
reel, de notre epoque. C’est indeniable, mais a l’arrivee, que vaut-il
mieux: bâtir une oeuvre totalement sincère et unique en son genre,
ou bien courir film après film après les signes d’un temps que l’on
sait ephemère?

Encadre: Les pronostics du "Temps" a J-3

Par Le Temps

Palme d’or:

Clint Eastwood: L’Echange(The Exchange) (USA)

Grand Prix:

Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne: Le Silence de Lorna (Belgique, France)

Prix de la mise en scène:

Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Les Trois Singes (Turquie, France, Italie)

Prix du scenario:

Atom Egoyan pour Adoration d’Atom Egoyan (Canada)

Prix d’interpretation feminine:

Hatice Aslan dans Les Trois Singes de Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turquie)

Prix d’interpretation masculine:

Joaquin Phoenix dans Two Lovers de James Gray (USA).

–Boundary_(ID_PS2bqZzjCY3+Yo5VPg7Wug)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EGOYAN RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS
Michael D. Reid, [email protected]

Times Colonist
May 23 2008
Canada

Victoria-raised director had qualms about debuting new film at Cannes

You couldn’t blame Atom Egoyan if he felt a little apprehensive when
he arrived in Cannes this week.

It was in the Riviera resort, after all, that Where the Truth Lies,
his sexually explicit $30-million showbiz mystery, got its world
premiere in 2005 and a thumbs-up in The Hollywood Reporter, only to
be later vilified by critics and ignored at the box office.

Egoyan, 48, returned to Cannes for yesterday’s world premiere of
Adoration, his 12th feature.

His $6-million drama centres on the turmoil that ensues when a
tech-savvy teenager, Simon, uses the Internet to reinvent himself as
the child of two historical figures.

The film, which stars Scott Speedman and Rachel Blanchard, focuses
on the impact of a translation exercise assigned by Simon’s French
and drama teacher (Arsinee Khanjian).

The text that prompts the student to reimagine it as his own life story
was based on a real news story about a terrorist who put his pregnant
Irish girlfriend on an El Al flight with a bomb in her handbag.

"This is a film that should be at Cannes. It’s the perfect way to show
it," says Egoyan, who was last on the Croisette a year ago. He was
one of 30 filmmakers invited to create a short film for a compilation
honouring its 60th anniversary.

"I’ve never had as much fun as I did last year because I didn’t have
the usual pressures."

Adoration, which he wrote, produced and directed, is a return to
Egoyan’s more intimate, lower-budget films like The Sweet Hereafter
and an opportunity to put a fresh spin on his signature exploration
of the role technology plays in our lives.

He admits he was nervous until he learned his feature was selected
as one of the 20 vying for the Palme d’ Or.

"I didn’t know if the experience of my last feature was going to
colour the path this one would take, but they loved it," says the
Victoria-raised filmmaker, former Cannes juror and frequent guest
since Speaking Parts premiered there in 1989.

Sony Pictures Classics has already snapped up distribution rights
for the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.

By comparison, Where the Truth Lies, his slick, erotic meditation on
celebrity culture through the eyes of a writer probing the breakup
of a decadent 1950s-era showbiz duo (Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon)
wasn’t a good fit for Cannes, Egoyan says.

"I never wanted to show the film in Cannes, but they insisted on seeing
it, and I sent them a VHS, which I’d never done," the Oscar-nominated
director said. "I did everything I could to discourage them but they
went nuts over it. It was a miscalculation."

He theorizes the glowing Hollywood Reporter review triggered a backlash
that intrigues him to this day.

"It’s not a work of art and wasn’t meant to be.

"You can’t compare a film like that to The Sweet Hereafter. It was
me having fun with a genre because I’ve always loved noir and murder
mysteries. I thought it was a great exercise in style."

He says the relationship between Simon and his drama teacher in
Adoration was "very clearly drawn" from his experiences as a high
school student and Victoria Drama Festival winner here.

"I had a huge revelation in junior and high school in Victoria about
the power of people who can inspire students to create drama," says
the former Mount Douglas and Glenlyon student.

He still holds dear an award honouring him for The End of Solomon
Grundy, a play he wrote and staged in Grade 12.

Decades later, Egoyan’s passion for drama is intact. He recently
directed Michael Gambon in an acclaimed mixed-media production of Eh
Joe, Samuel Beckett’s contemplative half-hour teleplay that Egoyan
staged first at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and then for London’s West
End. He’s remounting it with Liam Neeson as part of a Lincoln Center
Festival event in New York in July.

Meanwhile, his fascination with how we can use the Internet to redefine
ourselves continues unabated.

"When you’re dealing with YouTube and Facebook and there’s such a
plethora of responses there’s this pressure to be as entertaining
as possible," he says. "There’s pressure to engage people through
shock or in this case creating an alternate personality which is more
exciting than he would consider himself to be."

For an auteur so fixated with technology, it’s surprising to hear
Egoyan insist he’s not a "technophile." It wasn’t until two months ago
he even became aware of The Internet Movie Database’s user-comments
section, he says.

"I literally wasn’t aware there were whole dialogues around my movies
in these communities of people who don’t know each other," says Egoyan,
whose new film is rife with text messaging and the Internet telephone
service Skype as forms of communication.

And he hadn’t heard of text messaging until he used it as the central
motif in his Cannes short, he says.

"I’m beginning to become a little resentful of it," he adds. "I
don’t like the way it can puncture your life at any moment, yet
it’s a wonderful way to embroider your day with ongoing conversation
communicated by rudimentary concepts."

ATOM EGOYAN’S LAST-MINUTE JITTERS
Peter Howell

Toronto Star
May 23 2008
Canada

Canadian film icon identifies with newbie Collingwood filmmakers

CANNES, France-Atom Egoyan laughed yesterday when he heard the story
about two Canuck neophytes attempting to sell their homegrown horror
film here.

"I made that, actually!" Egoyan quipped, referring to Scarce,
a cannibal hillbilly flick by hoser horrormeisters Jesse Cook and
John Geddes.

"I wrote and directed it. I paid them to pretend they were me."

Egoyan, 47, was in a bit of a giddy mood, doing breakfast interviews
on scant hours of sleep after arriving in Cannes late the night before
from Israel, where he received an award for his 2002 film, Ararat.

Before going to bed he had to attend a 2 a.m. technical briefing at
the Palais des Festivals, to prepare for last night’s world premiere
screening of his film Adoration.

Egoyan can easy identify with rookie filmmakers arriving in Cannes
for the first time. He feels that way himself, even though Adoration
is his 12th feature and the fifth to premiere in competition at the
Cannes Film Festival.

"This is a very weird experience for me. I’ve never come into a
festival like this because I’m usually around, but I had to be
away. I now have no idea of what the alchemy of this festival is,
which is both a blessing and a curse."

He was alarmed to find that the press screening for Adoration would
overlap with the press conference for Steven Soderbergh’s Che, a
four-hour, 28-minute opus about Latin revolutionary Ernesto (Che)
Guevara that also kept critics up late the night before.

Egoyan was concerned his film wouldn’t be viewed with fresh eyes.

"At this point of the festival, I would imagine people are kind
of exhausted.

"So I’m not quite sure how attentive people can be after eight days of
very intense film watching. But it’s a risk you take and I’m excited
to see what happens to it."

On the other hand, the sensory overload at Cannes might work in
Adoration’s favour.

One of the movie’s themes is the proliferation of Internet chat-rooms,
which Egoyan sees as developing into online substitutes for community
meetings. The film also deals with hidden truths and the distortion
of facts through gossip and misperception.

It stars Scott Speedman, Arsinée Khanjian, Rachel Blanchard and
newcomers Devon Bostick and Katie Boland.

"What I get excited about are structures where your mind is racing and
you’re wondering, What is going on, what are the connections?" Egoyan
said.

"There’s a play between what the viewer is imagining and where the
film is moving and I’ve always found that really exciting. I love to
be in that zone, but I know some people might find it frustrating."

Adoration is a return to the more minimalist style of Egoyan’s earlier
work, following the grander scale of Where the Truth Lies, his Cannes
competition entry from 2005.

The new movie was proudly filmed in Toronto on a budget of $6 million,
which is a small sum for a filmmaker of Egoyan’s stature.

But like those horror lads from Collingwood, he’s excited about the
freedom you get when you don’t have a lot of money to account for.

"You can experiment a lot more. There’s not that same set of
expectations and I think it’s really a question of finding that
threshold where you’re allowed to do what you do best."

Now if only he could get some sleep, too.

–Boundary_(ID_4RkET9nLkGbpLIzwYCgxJA)–

PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA RECEIVED CHAIRMAN OF ROSGOSSTRAKH HOLDING

RIA Oreanda
May 23 2008
Russia

Yerevan . OREANDA-NEWS . On May 20, 2008 at the meeting discussed
were issues pertaining to the priorities in the economic development
of Armenia, prospects of development in the areas of insurance,
banking and financial structures, reported the Official website
.

The parties spoke also about the tendencies in global economy.

ATOM EGOYAN’S ‘ADORATION’ – OVERAMBITIOUS?
By Arnab Banerjee

France24
0523-atom-egoyan-adoration-cannes-film-review
May 23 2008
France

With a complicated chronology and provocative ideas, "Adoration"
by Canada’s Atom Egoyan is an intriguing film. But does it work?

Canadian director Atom Egoyan presented his latest film, "Adoration,"
at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday night. This is Egoyan’s fifth go
at the Cannes competition, and his latest offering left the audience
divided.

"Adoration" is the story of an orphaned adolescent who is encouraged
by his teacher to invent a convoluted story about his parents. He
concocts a fictional account of his father planting a bomb in his
mother’s suitcase to perpertrate a terrorist attack, then takes the
story onto the internet – and fiction turns into reality.

Egoyan’s film moves in two narrative streams – the first being the
real story of the adolescent, whose parents were killed in a car
accident. The second is the invented story about the planted bomb.

Complicated? Yes – probably the only element on which the audience
agreed upon. Although "Adoration" is a compelling document on modern
society – technology breaking up traditional human ties, solitude in
a world where religious intolerance is increasing – the film fails
to flow smoothly.

Nevertheless, the script is well constructed, and may even get the
Best Screenplay prize for Egoyan.

Unless, of course, a dark horse comes along.

RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS CONCERNED

A1+
[03:19 pm] 23 May, 2008

Russian advocates voiced concern over the recent assault on a
leading human rights defender, the chairman of the Armenian Helsinki
Association Mikael Danielian.

"We are confident that the leadership of any country must secure
conditions for normal and safe activities of human rights advocates,
political activists and organisations. Authorities must guarantee
their security from any sudden assault and threat," holds the statement
signed by 32 Russian advocates. /See the Russian version/

Russian advocates urge the Armenian leadership to take drastic measures
and launch an independent investigation to uncover the wrongdoer.

"As part of their investigation into yesterday’s assault of a leading
human rights defender, the Armenian authorities should investigate
the extent to which the victim’s human rights work was a motive for
the attack," Human Rights Watch said today.

Reminder: as a result of a May 21 incident on Terian-Moskovioan streets
the leader of the Armenian Progressive Party Tigran Urikhanian shot
at the chairman of the Armenian Helsinki Association Mikael Danielian
from a pneumatic gun.