Golden Apricot 2015
The film festival in Yerevan that starts today and runs until the 19th is a true red-carpet festival with film stars, glorious receptions, tributes to local hero Charles Azanavour – but also with a fine selection of documentaries to take part in a competition.
Lithuanian Giedre Zickyté is there with wonderful ”Master and Tatyana” – the master being the phenomenon Vitas Luckus – a clip from my review: ”the film is first of all a love story told primarily through the photos of Vitas and Tatyana, a love story that is so obvious, when you watch how he composes the portraits of Tatyana, how the camera is constantly caressing the beautiful woman, with or without clothes. Her face is so full of expressions and you can see that he has caught her in true observational documentarian style as well as in arranged situations…”
Alexander Nanau’s ”Toto and His Sisters” is there, it has had a well-deserved international festival career, two films touch upon Syria, British Sean McAllister’s recently awarded ”A Syrian Love Story” and the masterpiece ”Sivered Water, Syria Self-Portrait” by Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan. As well as Viestur Kairiss Latvian ”Pelican in the Desert” that had deserved a much better international life than it has had.
However, what I first and foremost look forward to watch is the
final version of Arman Yeritsyan’s Armenian ”One, Two, Three” (PHOTO) that has been on its way to completion for a long time with young Yulia Grigoryants as a very active pitching producer around Europe. I have had the chance to watch material of a film that it is very promising. Here is the synopsis of the festival website: Through the amazing, heartfelt, and sometimes hilarious story of Mikhail, the film shows the journey of The Chosen Ones. It collects each character’s personal narrative and artfully weaves them together around the main protagonist. Although each story is deeply personal, and the struggles of The Chosen Ones are defined by their lives in Armenia, the larger issues addressed by the film are much more universal. In every country, every city, and every community people grow old and need more care and attention. Mikhail and his friends take the first steps and in the sunset of their lives, finally start to live a full life…
