Press Conference for Neighbors Project

Right after officially announcing our new project called Neighbors, a press conference was organized in Golden Tulip Hotel in Yerevan, where the organizers of Golden Apricot International Film Festival, as well as Artsvi Bakhchinyan, the coordinator of Armenia Turkey Cinema Platform, and the directors - Diana Kardumyan, Arthur Sukiasyan and me presented the winning projects to media representatives.

Here are some photos from the event, and several links to the articles online (in Armenian only).

Tert.am

Lragir.am

Panorama.am

NT.am

News.am

Azatutyun.am

Project Pitching in Istanbul

We have some good news; remember the “secret” project we were recently working on together with other films? I was regularly uploading some photos and stills from our researching work which we were doing in far regions of Armenia. Well, there is no meaning to keep it in secret anymore, as too many people already know about it.

So, the new project is a full length documentary called Neighbors, which we started couple of months ago with the support of Royal Norwegian Embassy. The film is about two villages located right on the Armenian-Turkish borders. That’s it, no more information for now!

The good news is that couple of days ago Golden Apricot International Film Festival and Anadolu Kultur organized a film project pitching in Istanbul in frames of Armenia Turkey Cinema Platform, where I was among number of other filmmakers presenting their films for additional funding, and we got it! Thanks to these two great organizations for creating this opportunity.

Those who don’t follow our activities regularly, should check out the posts about the first, second and third trips to the filming location. From now on, you can follow the progress of this project both in this blog and in Current Projects page (as well as all the other active projects, by the way).

As about Istanbul, it still remains one of the most amazing cities in the world. As I am too lazy to take photos, my friends provided me with couple of them, so check our website blog for that.

Photos by Diana Kardumyan.

Couple of links

Just in case, if anyone needs some more information about us and our studio, here are couple of useful links for that;

Our website, Manana Youth Films

Our films

Our current projects

Award list

About us

Studio members;

Gor Baghdasaryan, Moushegh Baghdasaryan, Narek Javadyan, Anna Javakhyan, David Martirosyan, Tzovinar Talyan.

Contact info

And, of course, our blog, which is being updated quite frequently.

Besides, you can follow to all our news on Manana Youth Films Facebook Page.

Screenings in London + Sako Available for Viewing

David and me are back from London today, where we were attending the screenings of Sako in Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Everything went great, the film was screened in ICA and Ritzy Cinema three times, the response was excellent. We met a lot of interesting people, saw several exciting films, granted a couple of interviews, went out with both new and old friends and had some classic London rain.

Thanks to all the organizers of the festival, who did an amazing job, not just in London, but also in New York, San Francisco and Boston. It was a big pleasure to meet them. Visit their website for more information about the whole event.

I had lots of e-mails these days from different people asking where they can see the film, although I wrote in my previous post that the film will be online right after all the screenings are over. Finally it was found on Youtube, the link was spread, so I had to place it on our Facebook, and now it’s here, sooner than it was planned. Yes, who cares about what we’ve planned, when Youtube is there, right? Enjoy the film and some photos from the screenings here.

Some Upcoming Events

Couple of exciting news for everyone; one of our older films, Sako, has been included in the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival program. Little information about this event for those who doesn’t know anything about it; this is not a competition, but a selection of films on human rights issues from all over the world. These films are being screened in different cities during the year. Sako had already been screened in New York (Summer 2009) and Boston (Fall 2009). Now it is going to be screened in London and San Francisco. David Martirosyan, who is one of the key persons of our studio today (check the About Us page for his shiny face), was the cameraman of the film, although back then he had to stand on a chair to reach the camera viewer. So, David and me will attend the screenings on March 19th and 20th in London. I’ll post some photos from the event when we’re back.

And just a couple of days ago we found out that Sako will also be screened at Monterey Bay Film Festival in California on April 3rd!

Sako is a short documentary about a thirteen-year-old boy, who was made to work by his father since the age of seven at the tombstone factory. You can’t find it on our website, as the film was made way before Manana Youth Films was officially founded. I’ll post it on the blog when all the screenings are over.

Another Trip

As you may have noticed, we spend a lot of time traveling around the country. I’ve actually noticed that recently, never paid attention to that before, but yes, we leave for different villages every second week for couple of days. Although Armenia is small, it is a perfect place for a filmmaker; thousands of interesting locations, stories, colorful people, etc. We enjoy traveling around and gathering those stories.

So, we spent another weekend in a far village, filming and collecting interesting details for our new film. Sorry, can’t give out much information on this for now (“then why on earth are you writing about this?”), but all the project details will be available on the website soon.

The trip was exciting and funny; we filmed a lot, visited places that we never thought we can get in, and, as a result, had to deal with military forces in a way we wouldn’t like to ))

Mush was doing most of the filming this time, and as he complains all the time that his enormous genius is not being revealed on our website, I promised to upload some of his working photos this time. Feel the genius!

More pics here.

What we've been up to

It’s been a long time since our last post, and I decided to make a brief update of what we’ve been up to for the last couple of weeks.

Mostly we are busy with working hard on 40 00 N, 45 00 E project, which was launched on October. This is an interesting mix of documentary and fiction stories, three stories are already filmed and are being edited, another three are still being filmed. Production period took a bit longer than we expected, mostly because of the fiction episodes, and the release date will be postponed for about a month.

Besides, we are working on our online store, and soon we will be able to get rid of that annoying “Not available yet” sign, and you can purchase some of our films there. The coolest thing about our new store is that there won’t be any DVD-s. I personally hate DVD-s, I can’t stand them, I feel sick when I read the words “PAL/NTSC” and “region codes”, I feel a monster waking up inside me when I’m trying to play a DVD, or to burn it, or to copy it, I want to…

Ehm, excuse me. What I was saying is that our films will be available in totally other format, and both getting and watching them will be much easier. And don’t ever ask us for those shiny useless rounds!

Stay tuned, I’ll post some “Making-of 40 00 N, 45 00 E” photos soon.