The 14th “Golden Apricot” will be remembered for the variety of included events, renowned cinema personalities and guests, as well as diversity of genres of the screened films, VivaCell-MTS reports, adding, the festival, which enlivened the cultural Armenia, included both screenings, as well as rich program of master classes, hosting renowned cinema personalities Boris Khlebnikov (director, Russia), Ildiko Enyedi (director, Hungary), Rui Nogueira (film historian, France), Ciro Guerra (director, Columbia), Tom McSorley (film critic, Canada) and others.
“A program, before it gets the right to live, goes through a certain path. The ‘Golden Apricot’, which has a complicated and important mission, has passed through ‘adolescence’ and has entered its ‘adulthood’. The festival with fourteen years of history has grown into a window open before the world and an ambassador uniting nations with variety of cultures to share universal human values. This festival is also a platform bridging creative minds, emotions, and perceptions; it is a forum of artistic thinking, and an authentic passport for Armenia. I wish the organizers of the “Golden Apricot”, who have been working for it since its inception, strength and stamina for their future endeavors,” said VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian.
The special award “Let There Be Light”, founded by the Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II within the film festival, was handed over to composer Tigran Mansuryan for major contribution in the Armenian cinema at the Gevorgyan Seminary in Etchmiadzin.
The festival was marked also by a workshop on the further development of Armenian-Turkish platform projects.
The “Golden Apricot” paid tribute to Armenian film director, Merited Worker of Arts of Armenia, People’s Artist of Armenia, late Ruben Gevorgyants. One of his films, the “Kind Trace”, was screened in “Moscow” cinema.
The 14th “Golden Apricot” also included “French Cinema Day”, “German Cinema Day”, “Polish Cinema Day” programs, which were organized in cooperation with the foreign embassies represented in Armenia. The “Yerevan Premieres” included films winners of the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice film festivals, the source said.