“It is impossible to make a good movie in Armenia today”

“It is impossible to make a good movie in Armenia today. Here, conditions don’t exist for filmmakers to produce a good film. We don’t know what a good scenario is, and a scenarist can’t be born now, in a place where a worthy system doesn’t exist,” director Ara Shirinyan said in an interview with a Panorama.am journalist. “It’s a long road, to create conditions needed to produce good films, and we haven’t even taken the first step,” he added. He underlined that in order to create good films, three things are needed, all of which we don’t have: demand…in other words, an educated audience, experts, and a legal field.

“Film festivals help educate audiences, but not the production of films,” the director noted. In his words, we have had national films, for example, “We are our mountains,” but that this kind of film doesn’t exist today. In the opinion of film expert Ardzvi Bakhchinyan, film festivals can in fact play an important part in the joint production of films. “We have connections with every country in the world, yet we cooperate with none,” he noted.

Bakhchinyan also noted that the future of film in Armenia lies in low budget movies. “We shouldn’t even try to get involved in high budget filmmaking. We have to stay true to our spiritual and national mentality,” he said, adding that the proper atmosphere was needed in order to produce good films.

Bakhchinyan and Shirinyan are of differing opinions about the need for financing, as Bakhchinyan is of the belief that large sums aren’t needed for a small country like ours, while Shirinyan believes that there will always be the problem of the filmmaker trying to recover his expenses.