Armenia defines its films-participants of the "Golden Apricot" Festival

The Ninth International Film Festival "Golden Apricot" has received this year a record number of applications – 1250; of them, 150 films from 44 countries were selected," Mikael Stamboltsyan, Director of Festival Programmes, said at a press conference on June 15. The Film Festival "Golden Apricot" will take place in Yerevan on July 8-15.

"150 films is the traditional number for our festival – the list of Yerevan cinemas is not so long, and it restricts our capabilities to screen more films," said Mr Stamboltsyan.

He noted that 12 feature films, works of film directors from Poland, Russia, Chile, the Netherlands Iran among them, we ere chosen for the contest of international feature films.

Among the films to be presented in this nomination, "The Minister" by Pierre Shollery and "In the Mist" by Sergey Loznitsa, which were nominated at the Cannes Festival in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The films planned for screening within the programme of international documentaries include "The Special Trip" by a Swiss director Fernand Melgar, "The Clay Diary" by a Spanish professional Isaacius Lakuvest – 12 films in total.

Within the programme "Armenia Panorama", 28 films out of 68 presented were selected.

36 out of 560 applications were selected for screening in the contest of short films named "Kernel". In 2011, only 136 applications were submitted for the contest. According to Aram Shakhbazyan, the manager of this programme, such growth dynamics shows that this rather new nomination of the "Golden Apricot" is becoming more and more popular. In his opinion, the "Kernel" programme is a successful experiment.

Spectators will be able to see many off-the-contest films either.