Golden Apricot Film Festival to open with immersive music installation

The 23rd Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival will open on July 13 with a groundbreaking artistic performance that transforms the traditional launch into a fully immersive experience.

The festival’s first event, “Chora Gavit: A Score for Moving Bodies,” will be staged at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex in collaboration with the hosq foundation. Organizers say it is neither a concert nor a play, but a spatial music installation where musicians are dispersed throughout the venue’s foyer, creating a living soundscape through which guests move.

Each visitor’s journey through the space — shaped by their direction, pauses, and listening points — becomes a unique version of the composition. The work blends improvisation with architecture, making audience movement an integral part of the score.

The title unites two concepts: “Chora,” a Greek philosophical term for a space of possibility and creation, and “Gavit,” the Armenian architectural tradition of a church’s narthex. Together, they reimagine the festival foyer as a contemporary “gavit,” where everyday urban life transitions into cinematic reality.

By staging this installation before the first screening or official ceremony, Golden Apricot aims to redefine the idea of a festival opening. Organizers emphasize that cinema begins not only on the screen but also in the interplay of space, light, sound, and human presence.