Ghost of communism hovers in Armenian cinematography, says Turkish film director

With Golden Apricot 7th international film festival already over the participants are now sharing impressions as they are back home.

This year about 120 films were shown of all the 500 applications received. Forty five films competed in 3 nominations judged by 5 international jury members.

The main prize, Golden Apricot, in Best Feature Film Contest nomination was awarded to Kosmos by Turkish film director Reha Erdem.

Another Turkish film director Semih Kaplanoglu was also participating in the festival with his Honey.

Once home Kaplanoglu shared his impressions about the festival, the Armenian cinematography and the films shown during the festival in an interview with the Turkish daily Taraf.

Asked would it be right to say that Armenia attempted to ease the tension in Ankara-Yerevan relations by awarding Erden with the main prize, Kaplanoglu said there was no need to see a political context in the issue.

"You can think so, but that is really not the case. If you approach the issue from a political aspect, you may think so, but it was art that awarded Reha [with that prize]," said he.

Asked what he thought of the Armenian cinematography Kaplanoglu said: "One should be realistic in that issue. There were two Armenian films none of which did I like. They do not keep pace with time. Armenia is a country cut off the outside world. The damages of communism, the pressures of the long-standing regime can still be felt there. When people want to say anything, they first look around them and only then whisper something. We have such things in our country too, but we can criticize … while Armenia, due to that regime, is far behind us. But at the same time they have great film directors. To cut it short, I am disappointed with their films. But there are young film-directors who will in all probability do great things."