Representatives of Open Doors visit Armenia
Support A1+!Representatives of the Open Doors section of the Locarno International Film Festival Martina Malacrida, the head of the section, and Joel Chapron, a consultant of the Festival and a regional expert, visited Yerevan on October 29 by the invitation of GOLDEN APRICOT YEREVAN IFF.
The purpose of the visit was to present the Open Doors program to Armenian directors and producers and at the same time get familiar with the state of the Armenian film industry.
The Open Doors program aims to attract attention to the projects from countries with film industries that are yet in the stage of development and give opportunities to such projects to develop and find co-production partners. Each year this program targets a different region. This year the Open Doors section of the Locarno International Film Festival focuses on the three countries of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
On October 30, Martina Malacrida and Joel Chapron met with about 30 promising Armenian directors and producers in the premises of the Golden Apricot Fund for Cinema Development. Ms. Malacrida and Mr. Chapron presented the Locarno IFF and the Open Doors section, described the application procedures and requirements and answered the questions of the audience. This presentation was followed by 22 one-to-one meetings with the Armenian directors and producers.
On October 31, Martina Malacrida and Joel Chapron met with the director of the Armenian National Film Center Gevorg Gevorgyan. They had an opportunity to decide which films should be included in the retrospective component of the "Open Doors" program. They also discussed the general state of the Armenian film industry, the achievements of the last 20 years and perspectives for future development
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The 66th Locarno IFF will take place during 7-17 August, 2013 and the activities of the Open Doors section will take place during 10-13 of August. This year the Open Doors program will start accepting the applications in late November, and the deadline is March 3. The program has two components. The first component is the Open Doors workshop that aims to link film makers from the South Caucasus with possible partners, mainly from Europe. At the end of the workshop the winning projects will receive prizes in the amount of 40000, 7000 and 6000 EUR as a development or production support. The second component is the retrospective film screenings of films produced in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia during the post-soviet period.
