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.