ARMENIAN AND TURKISH YOUNG FILMMAKERS MET IN ISTANBUL

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 17:59:24 – 14/05/2012

Ten young filmmakers from Armenia and Turkey participated in the
Armenia-Turkey Cinema Platform (ATCP) workshop held in Istanbul on
April 12-13, 2012 on the sidelines of the 31st Istanbul International
Film Festival. The participating film projects, five per country,
were handpicked by the ATCP pre-selection committee from among 35
applications.

The two-day workshop program included one-to-one meetings between
Armenian and Turkish filmmakers and project pitching to the ATCP jury.

The ‘Grandchildren of Giaour… My Armenian Grandfather’
documentary film project by Devrim Akkaya and Josefina Markarian
won the prize worth $10.000. The film project exposes Devrim’s
great grandfather’s – Yusuf’s – identity and its further impact on
the family’s psychological world. Yusuf’s Armenian origin and its
concealment for decades have greatly affected Devrim’s inner world
and personality development. Through the documentary Devrim tries to
establish a connection between her feeling of loneliness and lack of
belonging, and the hidden identity of her great grandfather. Project
producer Josefina Markarian’s roots come from Istanbul, from where her
ancestors later moved to Athens. As a result, she shares the feeling
of lack of belonging, which initially drew her into the project.

The author of ‘Homeport’ Helen Kurkjian won the Jury Special Prize.

The film project explores a similar theme, where Helen’s father, now
based in Germany, sets out on a journey to the Middle East together
with Helen to trace back his roots.

The jury board was composed of the founding director of the Golden
Apricot International Film Festival and director Harutyun Khachatryan,
well-known Turkish director Yesim Ustaoghlu, artistic director of
the Golden Apricot International Film Festival Susanna Harutunyun,
director from ‘Ajans 21’ production company Nurdan Arca, and the
competition programmer of Sarajevo Film Festival Elma Tataragic.

ATCP was born out of cooperation between Anadolu Kultur (Turkey)
and the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival (Armenia)
in 2008 with the aim of establishing a common network through which
filmmakers from both countries are able to cooperate and produce films
together. Since its foundation, ATCP has supported the production of
11 films by filmmakers from Armenia and Turkey.

Over the past two years, ATCP has been supported through
the USAID-funded ‘Support to Armenia-Turkey Rapprochement’
project implemented by the the Eurasia Partnership Foundation,
International Center for Human Development, Yerevan Press Club and
Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia, and a number of
core partners in Turkey. More specifically, three workshops were
held as part of the Istanbul International Film Festival and Golden
Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival (two in

Istanbul, and one in Yerevan) for about 30 filmmakers from both
countries. Two films – ‘Wonderful, Very Nice: from Bitlis to America’
by Lusin Dink and Soner Alper, as well as ‘Back to Gurun’ by Adrineh
Gregorian and Vahe Ohanyan are currently in post production, with
two other films expected to be released in 2013.