Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we are
spinning the globe and landing in a spot that
I think often gets overlooked. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
But it is actually sitting right at one of the
most critical intersections of human history.
We are heading to the Southern Caucasus, specifically
to Yerevan in Armenia. It is such a fascinating
place to explore. It really is. And we are looking
at a cultural institution there with a name that
Well, I have to be honest, this sounds absolutely
delicious. It does sound tasty. Right. We are
talking about the Golden Apricot. Or if you want
to be authentic, Vosket Siron. Vosket Siron,
yes. If you did not know better, you might think
we were about to discuss a very lovely summer
harvest celebration. You know, maybe a deep dive
into the history of jam making. Which, to be
fair, would be a delightful deep dive in its
own right. I mean, Armenia has incredible fruit.
True, true. But we are not here for the produce
today. We're here for the pictures. because the
Golden Apricot is actually a heavyweight international
film festival. It really is a heavyweight. And
when I say heavyweight, I do not mean it's a
nice local get -together where neighbors watch
each other's home movies. We are talking about
an event that attracts absolute titans of cinema.
We really are. We are talking about figures like
Wim Lenders or Abbas Kyrostami, people who have
literally defined the art form of cinema for
the last 40 years. And that distinction is really
where we need to start. Because while the name
Golden Apricot evokes that local flavor, I mean,
the apricot is the national fruit of Armenia
after all the mission of this festival is aggressively
international. Very much so. Their motto is not
Come see Armenia. It is crossroads of cultures
and civilizations. That is a massive title to
live up to. Crossroads of cultures and civilizations.
It sounds like something you would see on a plaque
at the UN. It does. But if you look at the geography
and the history, it makes perfect sense for them.
Think about where Yerevan is. Right. It is landlocked.
Landlocked. And it's post -Soviet. It is bordering
the Middle East and Europe. The festival, which
is known as G -A -I -I -F, was designed to be
exactly that, a meeting point. It was not just
about watching movies. No, not at all. It is
about representing the richness of the human
experience across different nations and religions.
It is about using cinema to bridge gaps in a
region that has seen its fair share of division.
So let's untack this for you listening because
you do not just wake up one morning and decide
to become the crossroads of civilization. We
have this festival in Yerevan founded back in
2004 who actually decided to plant this tree.
It was a fascinating collaborative effort. You
had the Golden Apricot Fund for Cinema Development
teaming up with the Armenian Association of Film
Critics and Cinema Journalists. Critics and developers
working together. That sounds like a recipe for
an argument. Not a film festival? Usually, yes.
But they had serious institutional backing right
from the start. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Ministry of Culture were involved. Oh,
wow. Yeah, they knew this had to be a showcase
for the country. But the name that really put
them on the map globally, the secret weapon,
if you will, is Adam Egoyan. Right, the Canadian
-Armenian director. Exactly. He has been the
president of the festival since 2005. Now, for
you listening who might know the name, but not
the resume, Egoian is a major figure. He is huge.
He is an Academy Award nominee and a darling
of Khan. He navigates both the glitz of Hollywood
and the intense intellectual world of arthouse
cinema. So he is the bridge. He is the living
embodiment of that crossroads concept. He is
diaspora and he is local. Having a figure of
his stature meant that when invitations went
out to people like Wim Wenders. They did not
just see a new unknown festival in the caucuses.
Right, they saw a peer asking them to come. Exactly.
It gave the event immediate legitimacy. And what
exactly is the goal here? Is it just to show
Armenian movies to the world or is it to show
world movies to Armenia? It is a two -way street.
They have a dual objective. One is definitely
to present new works by filmmakers in Armenia
and the Armenian diaspora to give them a screen.
Makes sense. But the second part is arguably
just as important. To promote creativity and
originality in world cinema within the region,
they want to bring the world to Yerevan and Yerevan
to the world. It seems like they really leaned
into that regional connector role pretty quickly,
too. They did. In 2005, just a year after launching,
they initiated something called Directors Across
Borders. That sounds like doctors without borders,
but with cameras. The philosophy is somewhat
similar, actually. It is a network of filmmakers
from the region designed to foster collaboration.
And when you think about the geopolitics of that
specific part of the world, the tensions between
neighbors and closed borders... Right. It is
complicated. Very. Getting directors to talk
across those lines is no small feat. That is
fascinating. It is like... Film diplomacy. Precisely.
It is soft power in action. And since 2005, the
festival has functioned under the aegis of the
European Cultural Parliament. So they are plugged
into the wider European cultural conversation.
Exactly. They are not just operating as an isolated
outpost. OK, let's get into the nuts and bolts,
or I guess considering the name, the pits and
skins of the festival, the awards. Because I
love that they committed to the fruit theme all
the way down the line. They did not switch to
Golden Lions or Golden Bears. They really stuck
to their roots. So the top prizes are the Golden
Apricot and the Silver Apricot. Those go to the
best feature films, documentaries, and the Armenian
Panorama entries. But then for the short films,
they have the Apricot Stone. Which is a great
name. It implies the seed. the beginning of something.
A pit that could grow into a tree. Exactly. It
is a very poetic way to frame emerging talent.
It suggests potential. I love that. But then
there is one award that breaks the fruit -cattern.
And looking at the criteria, it might be the
most prestigious one. The Parajanov's Thaler.
Yes. This is their lifetime achievement award.
And for anyone who loves cinema, that name Sergey
Parajanov is sacred. for you listening who might
only know the big box office names, who was Parajanov.
Why name the big award after him? Parajanov was
basically uncategorizable. He was an Armenian
filmmaker who worked in the Soviet Union, but
his films like The Color of Pomegranates are
not traditional movies. They do not have linear
plots in the way we are used to. They are moving
paintings, visual poetry. He created a language
of cinema that was totally unique. And he had
a hard time for it. Immensely hard. He was persecuted
by the Soviet authorities. He was imprisoned
and censored. His art was considered dangerous
because it was so free. Wow. So by naming the
Lifetime Achievement Award after him, the Golden
Apricot is planting a flag. They are saying,
we value pure artistic vision over commercial
success. We value the rebels. And the list of
people who have received this award or the master
prizes is just wild. We were talking about legends.
You mentioned Wim Wenders earlier. Yes, the German
director behind Wings of Desire. He received
the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, but look
at the others. Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian
master, was honored in 2005. Kiarostami is huge.
He is a titan. Then you have Claudia Cardenal
from Italy in 2010, Fanny Ardent from France
in 2011. And looking at my notes here, they also
honored Nikita Mikalkov and Tanin Ogera. And
Charles Aznavour. Of course, the legendary singer
and actor. He received the Lifetime Achievement
Award in 2013. It really shows the gravitational
pull this festival has. These are not people
who just show up anywhere for a paycheck. Right.
They came to Yerevan because they recognized
a serious cinematic culture there. They recognized
that this festival was speaking their language.
It is also interesting to note the Ecumenical
Jury Award. Yeah. I feel specific. It is, and
it connects back to that Crossroads mission.
It is rare for a secular film festival to have
such a prominent ecumenical component. What does
that actually look for in a film? Well, it is
not just about aesthetics. It is about spiritual
and human values. The festival often features
films representing various religions trying to
show the richness of the human experience. It
is about looking at the soul of the film, not
just the technique. I want to take a minute to
actually walk through some of the winners over
the years because it is easy to say We're international,
but if only local films win, it's a bit of a
farce. But when you look at the Golden Apricot
winners for Best Feature, you really see that
international spread. Absolutely. It is a global
tour. Let's look at the very first one in 2004.
Appropriately enough, it was Adam Egoyan himself
who won for his film Airwrap. Which, fair enough,
it is the inaugural year he is about to become
president, and Air Rat is a very powerful, very
difficult film about the historical memory of
the Armenian Genocide. Right. So starting there
sets a very specific tone of introspection and
history. It was the festival stating its identity.
But then fast forward to 2011. The winner was...
A Separation by Asghar Farhadi. And that is a
massive deal. A Separation is an Iranian film
that went on to win the Oscar for best foreign
language film. It is widely considered one of
the best films of the 21st century. It is a masterpiece.
It is a masterpiece of social drama. For it to
win the Golden Apricot shows that the juries
here are identifying world -class cinema in real
time, often before the rest of the world fully
catches on. They're spotting greatness. Exactly,
they're not just following trends. Then in 2012
you have In the Fog, by Sergey Loznitsa, taking
the top prize. Brilliant filmmaker. That was
a co -production involving Belarus, Russia, Germany,
Netherlands, and Latvia. Again, very heavy, serious,
historical cinema. It deals with World War II
and morality in impossible situations. And 2014
was a big year, too. The Tribe by Miroslav Sloboshpitsky
won. along with the Stone River for documentary.
Yes. The Tribe is a Ukrainian film. And talk
about daring. It is entirely in sign language
with no subtitles. It forces the audience to
engage in a completely different way. Moving
to 2015, we go to South America. Embrace of the
Serpent by Ciro Guerra took the Golden Apricot.
That is a Colombian film about the Amazon. Exactly.
A black and white psychedelic journey into the
jungle. So if you look at that trajectory from
Canada to Iran to Ukraine to Colombia. Wait,
South Korea too, right? Yes. Back in 2011, the
silver apricot went to the journals of Musan
from South Korea. So the point is, this is not
a festival that is just looking inward. It is
fulfilling that promise of being a crossroads.
It is bringing the Amazon rainforest, the streets
of Tehran, the silence of a Ukrainian boarding
school, and the history of Eastern Europe all
onto the same screen in Yerevan. However, And
here is where we have to be real about this crossroads
concept. When you position yourself as a crossroads
of civilization, sometimes traffic gets jammed.
Or worse, there is a collision. That is an inevitable
part of creating a platform for diverse voices.
If everyone agrees it is not a crossroads, it
is a rotary club meeting. And that brings us
to 2017. This was a moment where the festival's
values were really tested. This is a crucial
part of the festival's history to understand.
You cannot talk about GAF without talking about
2017. The organizers canceled a specific off
-competition program. Right. And the program
had a very telling title. Armenians, internal
and external views. Internal and external views.
That sounds like exactly what the festival is
supposed to do. Exactly. But they canceled it.
And initially they did not give a reason, right?
Correct. No official reason was given at first.
Just silence. But in the age of social media,
silence is loud. It is. The cancellation sparked
an immediate backlash. Right. I see here from
our sources that LGBT activists took to social
media. They claimed that the cancellation was
censorship, plain and simple. Yes. Specifically,
they alleged that the entire program was scrapped
because it included two LGBT -themed films, Apricot
Groves and Listen to Me, Untold Stories Beyond
Hatred. Apricot Groves. The irony of a film with
that name being the center of controversy at
the Golden Apricot Festival is pretty... palpable.
It is. And the fallout was significant. This
was not something that just quietly went away.
This went to the very top. Because to be clear,
we are just reporting the events here to give
you listening the full picture of what happened.
You had the festival's own president, Adam Magoyan,
along with Arsené Kanjian, both prominent Canadian,
Armenian figures, publicly denouncing the cancellation.
That is a big deal. You have the president of
the festival speaking out against a decision
made by the organizers. That shows a real fracture.
It does. It shows a deep internal conflict between
the international face of the festival, which
champions total artistic freedom, and perhaps
the local realities or pressures. And it was
not just them, either. There was an open letter
signed by filmmakers, politicians, and activists,
rights organizations like Pink Armenia and the
Gela's LGBTQ plus Armenian society. were very
vocal calling it out as censorship. And it went
international too, did it not? It was not just
a local dispute. It did. The EU's Eastern Partnership
Civil Society Forum weighed in. They issued a
statement. saying the incident ran contrary to
Armenia's commitments to the Creative Europe
program. Wow. So suddenly a film festival programming
decision becomes a matter of international diplomatic
compliance. Right. That is the danger of being
a crossroads. You want the prestige of being
a European cultural partner, but that comes with
expectations regarding freedom of expression.
If local sensitivities or political pressure
force you to censor you, risk burning the bridge
you built. It really highlights that tension
we mentioned. You have a festival dedicated to
the crossroads of cultures. But when one of those
cultural inputs clashes with local sensitivities,
things get complicated fast. Precisely. It is
easy to be a crossroads for things everyone agrees
on. It is much harder to be a crossroads for
controversial or marginalized voices. But to
the festival's credit, it survived that controversy.
It absorbed the blow. Yes. The conversation happened
painful as it was, and they continued to operate.
Which brings us up to the present day. Or, well,
very recently. The 22nd edition of the festival
just wrapped up. It's the 2025 edition. It was
held from July 13th to July 20th. And looking
at the programming for this recent edition, do
we see them shying away, or are they leaning
back into the bold choices? I think the bookends
of the festival, the opening and closing films,
tell a story in themselves. Well, the opening
film was... It was just an accident by Jafar
Panahi. Panahi is a major name. You do not get
much more political statement than Jafar Panahi.
He is a giant of Iranian cinema, but he is also
a director who has faced immense persecution,
house arrest, and imprisonment in his home country
for his work. Right. So opening the festival
with a Panahi film is a statement. It is a signal.
It is. It reasserts the festival's commitment
to artistic freedom and regional storytelling
regardless of political pressure. It says we
support the difficult voices. And then the closing
film. They went with a classic. Last station,
a 1994 film by Harutiun Kachatrian and Nora Armani.
So grounding it back in our median cinema history
to close it out. Exactly. It is that balance
we keep seeing. Opening with a bold international
statement from a neighbor, closing with the celebration
of their own cinematic heritage. They are trying
to hold both truths at once. So what does this
all mean for you listening? We have gone from
a startup festival in 2004 to a major regional
hub that hosts everyone from Wim Wenders to We
have seen them navigate the complexities of crossroads
in a very literal sense with the 2017 controversy.
I think the Golden Apricot serves as a really
fascinating case study. We often think of film
festivals as red carpets, flashing lights, and
Oscar buzz. Glitz and glamour. Right. But in
regions like the South Caucasus, a film festival
is a diplomatic zone. A diplomatic zone, I like
that. It really is. It is a place where Crossroads
is not just a marketing slogan. It is a difficult,
necessary practice. It is about bringing different
worldviews into one cinema hall. Sometimes those
worldviews clash, as we saw in 2017. Sometimes
they harmonize, like with the Directors Across
Borders program. It seems like the value is in
the attempt. Even if it gets messy. The fact
that they are trying to hold that space open
is what matters. Exactly. In a world that is
increasingly fragmented institutions like the
Golden Apricot that insist on looking at the
internal and external views to borrow the title
of that cancelled program are vital. They force
a conversation. They force people to sit in the
dark and look at the world through someone else's
eyes for two hours. And that leads us to our
final thought for today. Yes. The question I
would leave you with is this. In an era of increasing
polarization where lines are being drawn harder
and faster than ever, can film festivals like
the Golden Apricot remain true crossroads? That
is a great question. Or are they inevitably going
to be forced to pick a path? Is true neutrality
and total inclusivity even possible when art
meets politics in such a volatile region? Something
to mull over the next time you sit down to watch
a movie from a part of the world you have never
visited. That is it for this deep dive into the
Golden Apricot. Thanks for listening. Thank you.