Our studio is 1 year old

That’s right, happy birthday, Manana Youth Films, you’re 1 year old now! Although our core crew has been working together for much longer than a year, the studio was officially founded a year ago.

Usually, when you hear about some “youth studio”, it’s either a small production organization founded and sponsored by a film college, which produces one or two shorts per year (usually the diploma works of the students), or it’s a place where film students gather, but never produce anything, although keep calling it a studio.

About a year ago we had an idea of starting an independent organization, where young filmmakers will work on projects that other studios may not risk to take, a place that will challenge the classic production companies by its own new way of running visual arts business. A place where ambitious young professionals (or non-professionals), which share our philosophy of filmmaking, will get a solid platform to speak up.

And during this year we’ve achieved quite a lot. MYF is known in most of the film festivals, including the biggest film events, it has partners and friends among many companies around the world that work in different spheres of film and media industry, our films have been screened and broadcasted worldwide, our filmmakers right now simultaneously work on a number of very different projects, from full-length documentaries to experimental shorts, we invite the best professionals both from Armenia and abroad to give their advice to us during the work. We also managed to be announced wanted by an international security system (you know how it’s called), get arrested, sued (proven not guilty) and drive national securities nuts.

And now I can proudly announce that Manana Youth Films is one of the most successful independent youth film studios in the world. We have a pile of the most ambitious plans of conquering the galaxy, this first year was just a small percent of what we intend to do in this sphere.

For one more time, thanks to Manana Youth Center, where most of our filmmakers studied while being teenagers; a place where you learn to break all the possible boundaries, a magic factory where kids realize that crazy ideas worth living for.

Thanks to all the people that believed in us since the very beginning and has been crazy enough to support our ideas. You won’t regret it.

Happy birthday!

Paper Garden on UN TV

Great news concerning Paper Garden again; UN TV starts the distribution of our film in frames of 21st Century, their monthly newsmagazine featuring human-interest stories in a dynamic, field-oriented style. This means that the film is going to be broadcasted by most of the major TV companies around the world; UN TV provides media content to the three main syndicators - APTN, Reuters and the European Broadcasting Union, which basically means the film is going to be broadcasted almost everywhere around the globe.

Just in case anyone didn’t get it right; it’s a big deal.

The film has been specially re-edited for it, we made some extra shootings for it, and although it reminds more a news video report now, but, hey, now the whole world is going to see it! Special thanks to ListenUp! and Austin Haeberle, who made the thing happen.

The film is available online now, although it’s the changed version, with TV-style narration. Have a look at it here.

What’s up #2

How are you doing? It’s been a while, eh? It’s time for another short news digest from the studio, isn’t it?

Let’s start from the Neighbors then. This film suffered a lot during this year, it truly deserves a title of an epic project; since January we’ve been filming for it on the most tough places, working with three different armies, dealing with all the power structures both in Armenia and Turkey, and the filming crew went through all kind of international scandals, detentions and trials.

But the work still goes on, we made another trip to the borders this month, another trip is coming up, so, hopefully, not much left to wait.

Asheer Akram, the great sculptor from our latest film, Moving a Mountain, has presented both his work done in Armenia and the film to the public in USA recently. As he claims, the presentation went very well. I will post the photos and more details from the event as soon as we get them.

In the meantime, more interesting stuff is coming up; two short fiction film projects will start in December, besides, soon we start a production of a short film series consisting of three short videos. As always, you can follow the progress of making them on our Current Projects page; not a single studio provides its audience with that kind of opportunity, so a warm thank you would be nice.

And some more news; I’ve spent another week this month working as a trainer in a filmmaking workshop in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, organized by OneMinutesJr. and UNICEF. This time the participants were Kyrgyz and Uzbek teenagers, representatives of the two biggest ethnic groups of this region. As you may know, this city was one of the hottest zones of conflict between these two groups this year, that is why the subject of the workshop was, obviously, peace. All the participants had a tragic experience during this conflict, and all of their wishes and dreams were about living in peace. Each of the teenagers produced a one-minute-long film during the workshop. If you’re interested, check out Chris Schuepp’s online diary of the workshop (as well as of the previous ones).

Ok, that’s enough for today. As you see, lots of stuff is going on here. So I better stop writing and go back to work.

Seagulls used in a Polish film

Some fragments from one of our older short films, Seagulls, made in 2004, has recently been used in a Polish short documentary video made by Servimedia.

Seagulls was filmed in a hazardous waste in Nubarashen, Armenia, which is considered to be a huge ecological threat for Armenia.

A Polish company called EcoTech has implemented a revolutionary technology of safe disposal of dangerous substances. Armenia is one of the countries the company works in, trying to prevent the ecological disaster.

This 4-minute-long film featuring some fragments from Seagulls tells about that invention. Now the film is going to travel around the world with high-positioned politicians to promote the technology.

Moving a Mountain released

Moving a Mountain, the film that we’ve been working on since April 2010, is finally ready.

It took three months of shootings and two months of post-production, including sound and music design and color correction.

The 20-minute-long film shows Asheer Akram, an American sculptor, originally from Pakistan, that came to Armenia to make a metal sculpture, which should embody his impressions about Armenian culture, history, lifestyle, as well as his ideas about current situation of Armenia. What makes it really interesting, is that this is his first visit to Armenia, a country he knew nothing about before, and he has only four months to finish his work.

The film is very interesting, dynamic and entertaining. Another cool piece from your favorite Manana Youth Films. Go ahead and check out the short fragment from the film, just to get a general idea of what the film looks like.

The questions concerning film’s distribution are still being discussed, that is why it’s not available for public viewing yet, unless you are a close friend of ours and can knock on the studio door and beg on your knees ask for a private screening. If you’re not a friend, you better do your best do become one, believe me!

New Website Thing #3

As you may have noticed, the website was down for a couple of days; we were changing the design of some of the pages, and the database was damaged during the testings (don’t ask me why, ok?).

Moush, our cruel web-mastermind, was working day and night to finish the planned changes and recover the website. And here is a short description of what has been changed; both films and current projects are now much more integrated with the blog. Which means, if you open, let’s say, Moving a Mountain page, you may always see what are the latest news on the blog concerning this exact project. Besides, you can look through all the photos, videos and awards of the project in separate albums. And there are some minor changes all over the website, for example, you can have basic technical information about each film on its right sidebar (more detailed technical info will be available for every film when our online store is ready).

All these improvements will let you follow the progress of every current project we work on much closer and get all the latest updates on films and projects that interest you. Although I know that you are interested in every single thing that happens at the studio, aren’t you?

Coming soon: a separate page that will bring together all the videos available on the website; films, trailers, teasers and production videos (yes, we are going to make those from time to time now, too).

You see, we do our best to make it easy and fun for you to find any needed information here. Aren’t we the nicest studio ever?

Paper Garden Awarded in 01SJ Biennal

One of our films, Paper Garden, was awarded in a film competition organized by Adobe Foundation and ZER01. The film was featured as a part of the 2010 01SJ Biennal.

Paper Garden is a short documentary showing the environmental situation in Yerevan. The film was made for the Beyond Green international film series of ListenUp! and Adobe Youth Voices.

Not bad folks, eh? For the third time this month, congratulations to us!

Green Day #4

Our next interesting meeting was organized with two Armenian filmmakers, Arman Yeritsyan and Inna Sahakyan, the directors of the documentary “The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia”, a touching and fascinating film about the dying art of tightrope dancing and their last carriers produced by Bars Media studio.

Arman Yeritsyan is a well-known documentary filmmaker. Most of his previous works, including “Under the Open Sky” and “Hello, Fellini” were awarded in a number of prestigious international film festivals.

The meeting, which included also the screening of the film, lasted till late evening, despite the heavy rain and terrible wind.

A short description of the film for those who are interested:

Zhora (76) and Knyaz (77) were once the most celebrated masters of tightrope dancing in Armenia. Today, they are the only surviving performers who can keep this ancient art alive against the current of contemporary society. Having been bitter rivals throughout their lives, a common objective has finally brought them together: to train the only student of tightrope dancing left in the country. Hovsep, a sixteen year old orphan boy, has to decide whether or not to accept the role of the last tightrope dancer in Armenia, in a society that has abandoned both him and the art of tightrope dancing.

Check out the previous Green Days of the studio, by the way. Why shouldn’t you?

The Third Rider Screenings

This was a good month for The Third Rider; on September 9th it was screened in Aye-Aye International Film Festival in Nancy, France together with Dinner Time, and on September 24th it was screened in Arpa International Film Festival in LA, USA.

More screenings are coming up!

Bye-Bye, David!

This is a very sad day for our studio; David Martirosyan, one of the founders of Manana Films, is leaving us. He moves to another country to chase new adventures and achieve more heights.

David is one of the most talented, hardworking and responsible filmmakers I ever knew. He’s been our friend since very early childhood and worked with us since he was only 13. I always remember how he had to stand on a chair to reach the camera viewer back then. And I’m sure one day in future you’ll need to stand on a chair to shake his hand.

I’m keeping him in our Members page, because no matter where he is, he’ll always be an important part of our studio, and one day we’ll blow your minds away together with something new and crazy. Goodbye for now, David. Keep it up.

The Third Rider is selected for Arpa Film Festival

Another festival news! The Third Rider has been selected for screening in Arpa International Film Festival in California. The event will take place from September 21 - 26, 2010 at Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

As you may remember, The Third Rider is also nominated in Aye-Aye International Film Festival in Nancy, France, which will take place also in September of this year.

New Website Thing #2

Another new thing is added to our website; studios’ friends page. During our work we meet different people and organizations who support us in our work. The support may be financial, technical, mental, or all together.

This is the list of people and organizations, that have ever helped us or are still helping with any of the projects, or are being helpful in general. The list will be updated quite often.

So now, when you go to About Us page, which also has been slightly changed, have a look at friends’ page. Who knows, maybe your name is already there.

New Website thing

Moush and me are the biggest fans of our studio website, and almost every day we come up with a new idea of how to improve this or that feature. Small things are being changed or added quite often, but, thanks to Moush’s strict coordination, the website always keeps its attractive simplicity and works like a swiss clock.

And now another cool feature is added; now, when you slide the mouse over the banner on our homepage, a small button saying “Previous banners” appears on the upper right corner. Click it and go through some of our previous illustrations.

New and much bigger improvements are on their way.

Asheer’s Sculpture Revealed

At last, after about 4 months of almost non-stop working, Asheer Akram’s sculpture is ready and open to public. Moving a Mountain was exhibited in Modern Arts Museum in Yerevan in July 31st. If you leave in Yerevan, you can see it there every day, until it is moved to somewhere else.

The exhibition was a great success, and Asheer is ready to leave for home soon. Hopefully, when he comes back in a year, he'll see his sculpture somewhere in the center of the city or on a nice spot in some park, where young people will come to take pictures of each other in front of it.

As about the film of the same name, the shootings are already done, and the project is entering the post-production period. Hopefully, it will be ready by the end of the summer.

Two of Our Films Nominated in France

Two of our films, The Third Rider and Dinner Time (which you can watch on our website right now, by the way) are included in Oriental Express program of Aye-Aye International Film Festival, France.

The festival will take place in the beginning of September in Nancy. The screening day of The Third Rider is already set; it is September 9th, 19:00. Hopefully, I will attend it personally.

Although only 3-minute-long Dinner Time has been really successful since it was made in 2006 (it was even nominated in IDFA, the biggest documentary film festival in the world) and has a large list of awards already, we can’t tell the same about The Third Rider, which, unfortunately, didn’t travel much because of its controversial content. Let’s hope this event will change that tendency.

Temporary Pause in the Filming at the Border

Those of you, who follow our activities here and on our Facebook page, have probably noticed a strange silence from us for the last couple of days (I don’t count the detailed comments on Mush’s boots). That is because our shootings are temporarily stopped here, and we are very sorry to admit that. We need to return back to Yerevan for several days and restart shootings later.

The thing is, although the preparation for this shootings took several months, we ran out of clean socks we still have faced some unexpected and really serious problems, which made us to postpone the shootings in order not to risk the whole film, which is being produced for half a year already.

Anyway, this is not the first obstacle we faced during this project. This is one of the most complicated films we ever worked on, and major and minor problems with authorities and not only were appearing every now and then. Filming on the border, especially on a border which is at the center of the world’s political attention now, is risky, challenging and, yes, quite dangerous, too. But we haven’t given up, and the shootings hopefully are going to go on in the beginning of August, all of us are doing our best to make that happen.

I strongly believe that problems and obstacles make the film more interesting, and I’m sure that at the end we are going to have a piece of work our studio can be really proud of.

Filming goes on

Second day of filming on Turkish borders went really well. We met new people, visited the family who probably are going to be the main characters of the Turkish part of the film, filmed the fair of villages that takes place every summer. The latter was basically a party in the middle of a deserted area with some hundreds of people. People were drinking, dancing and singing, and of course, everything ended with a huge fight, where everyone was happy to take a part. We managed to drive away just in time.

We also visited Turkish “yailas” (tent villages, where people take their animals in summers), filmed a very interesting conversation in a tent, where we heard a lot of new facts and stories about the relations of the two villages we are filming in. The fact that they don’t know where we come from makes it more interesting, as they are being really honest.

The day was interesting and quite full, although the unstable weather and the strong wind made everything a bit more difficult. But the trip goes on, and every day promises to be more exciting than the previous one.

More photos.

First Day of the Trip to Turkey

Driving to Kars took a little longer than a day because of the long stops at the borders of Georgia and Turkey. We arrived late after midnight and left for the location next morning with Nesra Gurbuz, our executive producer from Istanbul. I will not tell you about the incident with not knowing about the 2-hour time difference between Yerevan and Kars and demanding breakfast at the hotel somewhere at 6 in the morning, as it’s a shame, and nobody should know about it!

Finally, we visited the Turkish village we were watching from the other side of the border for the last few months. Was quite an unusual feeling. We met different interesting people and heard some interesting opinions, although we didn’t hope to get much on our first visit.

Not knowing the language causes difficulties, but makes all the process more challenging, especially when it comes to dealing with local military forces. The next several days are going to be full of interesting and intense shootings and trips.

And, what is really important, we didn’t forget to take a photo camera with us (I know, I can’t believe it either), and we even remembered to take a charger, unlike the last time. So no more cell-phone-made photos. Mush is taking care of it. Somebody should finally stop David though, he keeps posting them on Facebook like a maniac.

Check back every day, it’s going to be exciting. Neighbors going to a new level.

More photos.

Green Day #3

One more interesting educational meeting at our place; we hosted Allen Hughes, a famous American filmmaker, the director of such hit movies as The Book of Eli and From Hell, and who has worked with Denzel Washington, Johny Depp, Gary Oldman and others.

The filmmaker met both the studio members and most of the students of Manana Center, talked about his own experience in film industry, difficulties he met during his career, working experience with big movie stars, filmmaking world in Hollywood in general, and, of course, about his Armenian mother, who had a big influence on his artistic life.

After the workshop most of us were invited to attend the screening of The Book of Eli together with the director.

Allen Hughes was a great person to meet with, very honest, funny and highly experienced in his sphere. We’ll do our best to get more and more interesting people of film industry to visit our studio and do a workshop for us.

Yes, who has Steven Spielberg’s e-mail address, by the way?

P.S. Once again, for those who don’t know; Green Days are the days we have a meeting with someone who works in film industry and who was invited to share his experience with us.

Green Day #1

Green Day #2

Another Armenia Turkey Cinema Platform Workshop

Those of you, who live in Armenia or are visiting the country these days, know that Golden Apricot International Film Festival, the biggest cinema event of Armenia has started. Unfortunately, our studio has no films in the program this year, as our main projects are still in progress. Anyway, we were looking forward to the festival, because there is always lot of interesting things going on during it, and it’s a huge fun.

In frames of the festival, another workshop of ATCP (Armenia Turkey Cinema Platform), an initiative of Golden Apricot and Anadolu Kultur from Turkey, has started. This platform was created to support and encourage the cooperation of Armenian and Turkish filmmakers and producers, and it’s growing bigger every year.

If you follow our news (and you should, of course), then you remember that our Neighbors project was applied and won additional funding in frames of ATCP in April of this year in Istanbul. That is why on the first day of this month’s workshop I presented the project to the new applicants, as well as to the organizers and special guests. The film will be a part of the next year’s Golden Apricot FF program.

Besides, our studio will host some of the filmmaker guests of the festival this week, who kindly agreed to do short workshops for us and for the younger students of Manana Center.

Enjoy the festival and try to watch as many films as you can. It’s a pity most of us are going to miss the last part of it, as we’re leaving for Turkey at the end of this week, to go on with filming the Neighbors.

Some links, in case if you missed;

Project Pitching in Istanbul

Press Conference for Neighbors Project

ATCP in other media (those I could find):

Panarmenian.net - English, Armenian

Tert.am - English, Armenian

Moving a Mountain: filming almost done

The filming for Moving a Mountain is almost done. Asheer has finally finished his work, the sculpture is ready and waiting for the big guys’ decision. The result is beyond all my expectations, and now I am glad I have never seen the sketches of it before.

Now, the most important moment is still to come; soon it will be clear where the sculpture will be placed.

Meanwhile, the filming process for this project comes to its end. Here are a couple of more stills from the materials.

Shootings for 40 00 N, 45 00 E and a new film coming up

40 00 N, 45 00 E project is still in progress, most of the Sunday was spent for more filming outside of Yerevan. We hope to finish the production period of this film by the middle of July, but it mostly depends on whether Mush and David pass their exams if we manage to get all the actors for the final chapter of the film and finish up some minor organizational works.

Last month I wrote about another short documentary film we are working on now, about Asheer Akram, a young American sculptor who is making a metal sculpture in Armenia. Good news; the sculpture will be ready in a few days, and the shootings are almost over. I had a hard time trying to come up with an interesting title for this project, till Asheer suggested a working title himself. So, please meet our new film project, Moving a Mountain. Coming soon! Hopefully.

More photos here.

Some updates

It’s been quite a while since our last post, most of you probably were thinking we have gone for a vacation. Nope! We’re here and working even harder.

First news; the next two episodes of 40 00 N, 45 00 E are being filmed right now, and one of them is being filmed in Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory, one of the most beautiful and amazing places in Armenia.

Neighbors project is going pretty much as it was planned; we are going to film on Turkish side of the borders somewhere in the middle of July. Lots of preparation work to do by that time, hope everything goes fine.

And the latest news; I spent the last week in Kiev, working as a trainer in filmmaking workshop organized by OneMinutesJr. and UNICEF. The subject of the workshop was HIV/AIDS, and all the 15 teenage participants were either infected themselves or had HIV-positive family members. As a result, we had 15 one-minute-long films telling the true life stories of these children. This was the fourth and perhaps most psychologically challenging OneMinutesJr. workshop I worked for, and I’m definitely looking forward for new ones.

More photos on our website.

More Filming for Neighbors Project

We just came back from another trip to borders, where we were filming for the Neighbors project. We finally managed to get access to some really fascinating places where no one else except military officials are allowed to be. The trip was tough; lots of walking through swamps, hours of driving through dusty deserted areas with almost no roads, military checkpoints every now and then, etc. Although officials were really friendly and helpful, which was very nice.

And, of course, we met our friends from the village, who were really glad to see “those filming guys” again.

Meanwhile, the film grows bigger, and one of the most important trips in frames of this project, the trip to Turkish side, is close.

More photos here.

What's up?

Most of the last couple of weeks were spent on working hard on 40 00 N, 45 00 E project. This is a full-length film, which consists of 6 different stories, both fiction and documentary. Right now we are editing the first three films, the other three are being developed and will be filmed soon. Editing goes quite well, although it is very tough; scripts are being changed, concepts are reviewed, gallons of coffee are drunk. We hope to release this film in summer, but not sure in which month. The production of this film took a bit longer than we planned, but it is going to be a really, really nice one, you just wait.

Besides, we plan another trip to borders for this month, as we already miss our main characters, Narek and his family.

The other interesting news is that I also work on a short film about a very great guy and a talented sculptor from United States, Asheer Akram, who is making a metal sculpture to be placed somewhere in Yerevan.

That’s basically what we were busy with for the last several days, thought you might be interested. Oh, you’re not? Ok, sorry.

Filming on the Borders

David, Mush and me are back from the village situated right on the borders of Armenia and Turkey, where we are working on our new film called Neighbors.

This was our third and longest trip to there; although it is really tough to shoot on the borders, especially when it is a film, not a news video report, we managed to film lots of interesting and exciting things and got to know our main characters much better.

As about the trip itself; it was cold, rained day and night, mud everywhere, and no drinking water at all. Oh yes, concerning the water; the dam up in Gyumri cracked when we were filming, and the whole village was warned to be ready to run like hell if the dam bursts, as the water will wash away the whole village (and most of the other located areas around, actually). We stopped complaining about lack of water when we heard that.

But the trip was great, as all our trips are. We’ll visit the village one more time early in May.

Meanwhile, we are back to Yerevan now to drink some water, wash away the mud and to work on 40 00 N, 45 00 E, which we hope to release in summer.

Here are some photos from the trip. Sorry for the quality, they all are shot by cell phone, as we forgot the photo camera. As always...

Green Day #2

As you may already know from my previous posts, we try to organize educational days for our studio regularly and to invite specialists from any sphere of film production for a meeting. Unfortunately, we don’t manage to do this as often as we would like to (hey, we’re making two full-length films at the same time after all!), but these meetings (we call them Green Days) are very important for all of us, that’s why I’ll do my best to arrange them more often.

This time our guest was Avo John Kambourian, an Apple product specialist from Los Angeles, who is currently volunteering at Birthright Armenia.

Avo organized a short and very interesting Final Cut tips workshop for us. This is the main editing software we use at Manana Films, but all of us learnt it on our own, that is why a workshop from a specialist was extremely useful for us.

Thank you very much Avo! Hope to see you as one of the Apple top managers in a few years. Don’t forget to send us a couple of free computers when it happens!

Related stuff:

Green Days

Avo’s blog