For the 7th year in a row VivaCell-MTS becomes the general sponsor of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival The joint press conference held today at the Ministry of Culture announced this year’s Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival. Participants of the press conference included the Minister of Culture of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan, VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian, the Director of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival Harutyun Khachatryan, Programs Director of the Festival Mikayel Stamboltsyan, and the Artistic Director of the Festival 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. This year 1020 (against 700 applications last year) applications from around 70 countries were submitted for participation in the festival, 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 also celebrated. “VivaCell-MTS has always supported the initiatives, including the sphere of art, that are leading to raising Armenia's reputation in the world. This is why for the seventh year in a row VivaCell-MTS is extending its hand to the festival. VivaCell-MTS considers this undertaking as another effective way of integrating Armenia into the world through presenting the richness of the country’s cultural heritage,” VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian told. “Having a developed cinematography puts the Nation on equal positions with other cultural nations. One cannot overestimate the role of Golden Apricot in promoting our national cinema, and through it, in relaying our identity, history, mission and fair objectives to the humanity,” continued Ralph Yirikian. In the frames of the festival Directors without Borders joint forum on production implemented with the EU support as part of the Directors without Borders of the European Union Eastern Partnership program will be held for the 6th time. A Cinema Reporters without 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.

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