This year the jury of Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival will be presided by Spanish director Victor Erice.

On May 11 a joint press conference was held at the Ministry of Culture of RA which announced this year’s Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, http://www.gaiff.am website reports.

The speakers of the press conference were the Minister of Culture of RA -Hasmik Poghosyan,VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian, the Director of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival Harutyun Khachatryan, the Festival Program Director Mikayel Stamboltsyan, and the Festival Artistic Director Susanna Harutyunyan.
Golden Apricot 9th Yerevan International Film Festival will be held from July 8th till 15th, 2012. This year again the festival is supported by the general sponsor and devoted partner VivaCell-MTS and the Ministry of Culture of Armenia.
Overall, 1,020 applications (last year- around 700 submissions) from around 70 countries were submitted for participation in the festival this year, which is the evidence of the festival’s yearly growing popularity. Another proof of this is the participation of renowned cinematographers, which has grown into just another tradition at the festival. This year the jury of the festival will be presided by Spanish director Victor Erice, jury member of the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. With Yerevan announced the World Book Capital in 2012, the Golden Apricot will present a new program Book and Cinema. The program will reflect on the screen versions of the Armenian and world classic literature.
The competitions in 2012 again will include International Feature, International Documentary, Armenian Panorama, and Apricot Stone programs. The latter was launched in 2011 and is particularly aimed for short films by young cinematographers. The screenings are promising in Yerevan Perspectives, Retrospect Screenings and Tribute programs, which promise a number of surprises by the world masters of cinematography. In particular, film screenings dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Yuri Yerznkyan (Yuri Yerznkyan and his students) and the 85th anniversary of Frunze Dovlatyan will be organized within the Tribute program. The 80th anniversary of Andrey Tarkovski will be celebrated with special remark.

In the frames of the festival Directors Across Borders co-production forum will be implemented with the EU support. This year the 6th edition of the forum will be held already in the frames of the European Union Eastern Partnership. More information on the program are to be presented at a press conference to come.
“Cinema Journalism Across Borders” training is planned to be held before the start of the festival and is to be attended by highly qualified international experts and cinema researchers and critics arriving from the Eastern Partnership countries. The guests will participate in the publication of the Golden Apricot Daily throughout the festival days.