Today at Golden Tulip hotel, Gevorg Gevorgyan, the director of the National Cinema Center of Armenia, presented the first national cinema festival in the history of the Armenian cinematography and Hayak (binoculars) award-statue. “It is our first child, we want it to be good”, said the director excitedly. He informed that there would be 12 Hayak nominations, 92 movies compete for being the best. The statue that was chosen through a competition, in which designers, architects and artists had participated, was Isabell Nersisyan’s design.
The national cinema festival will be held with the support of Orange Armenia Company. Bruno Dutua, the chief director of the company, noting that they had been the partner of Cannes for 10 and British BAFTA for 6 years, stated that they were happy to participate also in establishing and building the Armenian national festival.
Members of the jury were also present at the press conference.
Writer Razmik Davoyan said half in jest, half in earnest that the good thing about the cinema festival in years of independence was that they would give money.
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Another member of the jury, film critic Suren Hasmikyan asked the journalists at first how many movies had been shot in 20 years of independence and the number was 500, then added that the assessment of one jury on movies could not be final, “Only time makes the final assessment… E.g. Malyan’s Triangular shot in 1966 that is perceived as a sort of revolution got an award only 10 years after, one of the newspapers wrote about Triangular, calling it short in theme.”
Dramatist Karine Khodikyan gives importance to the national movie festival, “We are neither the first, nor the last in the world, there will be various other festivals after us, the main purpose of which is this cliché – to contribute to the development of the national cinematography.”
For writer, translator Ruben Hovsepyan the most important thing is continuity of the process, “Only wish is not enough, it happens when the continuity is disrupted and everything must be started from scratch… Earthquakes, revolutions happen, buildings collapse… I am happy that it has started, a thing has started that will guarantee continuity if not today, then tomorrow, the important thing is that the spirit is Armenian, perhaps, the quality is not that good, particularly given the fact that many have been instructed on other movies, Hollywood has come and squeezed in our homes, but it will be different in the near future.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
