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Directors across borders at TIFF

By Tatia Megeneishvili
Friday, December 6
The Directors Across Borders (DAB) project and the Tbilisi International Film Festival (TIFF) held a joint press conference about DAB at the Holiday Inn Hotel on December 5th.

Among the speakers were the General Director of TIFF Gaga Chkheidze, the director of the DAB project and general director of the Yerevan International Film Festival Harutyun Khachatryan, the DAB project manager and artistic director of the Yerevan International Film Festival Susanna Harutyunyan, DAB project expert Terrence Sandell and the DAB project coordinator Lusine Martirosyan.

The DAB project, supported by the European Union through the Eastern Partnership Culture Program was initially a regional co-production forum established in 2007 within the framework of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival.

In November 2011, the project received a grant to broaden its scope and activities from the European Community, represented by the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia.

Harutyunyan said that the Films Across Borders (FAB) film-program is developing an anthology of films from the Eastern Partnership countries. According to her, guests at TIFF have already had an opportunity to see several recently released films from Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan. This year six new films from the Eastern Partnership countries will be screened during the festival week.

According to Khachatryan, the DAB project supported the film I’m Going To Change My Name by Maria Saakyan and it will be presented in the main competition.

The Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival will be held for the 11th time on July 13th-20th, 2014.

Along with the FAB program, the DAB project is going to organize an international conference entitled “Co-Production and the Eastern Partnership Region - Obstacles, Opportunities and Harmonization” as part of TIFF.

The conference will summarize research on audio-visual legislation in the six Eastern Partnership countries that was undertaken as part of the DAB project.

According to Sandell, there are a number of legislation obstacles that hinder film-making co-production opportunities. “The first step toward harmonizing the film sector in the Eastern Partnership Region is to have a more thorough and up to date base-line assessment of the situation. Research and analysis of the current film legislation and policies of Eastern Partnership countries will create the possibility of improving the situation in those countries.” Sandell stated.