Three Armenian films submitted for Golden Globe award  

_{Scene from film, The Last Inhabitant, directed by Jivan Avetisyan}

Three films from Armenia have been submitted for consideration for Best Foreign Film in the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards: The Last Inhabitant, Hot Country, Cold Winter, and Earthquake, Asbarez reports, citing an official statement release by the organizers.

“As a filmmaker raised in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) I have listened to stories of hardships endured by my family and villagers, and of their struggles into dealing with such a devastating inter-ethnic conflict.” So says Jivan Avetisyan, a prolific 35 year-old Armenian director with a solid documentary background, who was born in Karabakh.

The 35 year old director hopes that The Last Inhabitant will be seen as “a strong message that we need each other regardless of race, culture and religion in order to survive and preserve our racial identity. This film is about people who have appeared in a hell after they have lost their paradise, people who are saved by love, virtue and self-sacrifice.”

As clashes are happening to this day in that region, this is a message surely to resonate deeply for the Armenian community. But also for all the victims of ethnic cleansing over the world.

Hot Country, Cold Winter is a film directed by David Sarafian about the Armenian experience after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. One can dispute Russian President Vladamir Putin’s remark calling the breakup “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe,” but what is indisputable is that on a personal level a lot of people who lived in the former Soviet republics suffered a lot of depravity when they suddenly became independent countries in August of 1991 and their lives radically changed.

And some of the most suffering people there were the members of intelligentsia, who found themselves without means of existence and no sense of purpose. In the film, Armenian director David Sarafian mixes realism and poetry to explore another dark period in the history of his long-suffering people. But don’t expect to get all the answers to the many questions asked by this film.

Earthquake is a film is based on the real events surrounding the disastrous earthquake which struck Armenia in 1988. The terrible earthquake claimed at least 25,000 lives and left about half a million people homeless. For director Sarik Andreasyan it was a very special project, in which he wanted, after almost 30 years, to tell the story not only of death and destruction but also to show the hope and community spirit in the face of the nightmare.