“Absolutely indifference was not displayed, simply, a few things should not be mixed here with each other. What was done by Georgi Vanyan, was the Azerbaijani film festival. In other words, a purely Azerbaijani movies, and the so-called festival was held during Maragha genocide, on the eve of the anniversary of the Genocide. It was immorality. In other words, we did not have anything to celebrate or glorify with a country that is in war with Armenia.” – said blogger Tigran Kocharyan in the interview with Aravot.am, answering the question of why Georgi Vanyan’s initiative last year about holding the Azerbaijani Film Festival was so tumultuously adopted; the author deserved criticism and blameworthy, labeling, there were even brawls and red-tape, but just a few days ago, in the framework of “Golden Apricot” film festival, the presented Azerbaijani film deserved rather mild treatment.
To remind you that our interlocutor was one of the inveterate opponents of Vanyan’s initiatives and one of the initiators of counteractions.
Tigran Kocharyan does not consider the comparison of these two events “a little serious”, because, according to him, they are of different ideologies. He also notes that the leadership of the “Golden Apricot” also tries to present the film as a German movie produced by an Azeri filmmaker. “In other words, it it is not written who the author is. It is written that the author is a German. They are also trying to somehow avoid responsibility.”
However, even in this case, according to our interlocutor, “Golden Apricot” became not a festival of arts, as it claimed, but he sees some obvious politicized shades: “bringing some questions to Armenia, to advocate here, sowing irrelevant tolerance. The management of the festival, which claims that there should be no politics in the art, and that they are out of it and that the claims are at least false because, since 2009, when the steps for improving the Armenian-Turkish relations began, an Armenian-Turkish platform immediately appeared in the “Golden Apricot” festival. And since 2009, there has not been a year that a Turkish film has not received an award. Even special prizes are awarded to films that have no artistic value. And this year it was generally a shame … I do not know what their purpose is, but it is evident that politics has entered the cinema. In my opinion, the “Golden Apricot” has no longer the value, which originally was planned to have. It is some politicized event.”
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Nelly Grigoryan
