MUMBAI: The 12th annual Arpa International Film Festival will present over 50 films, post-screening receptions, and a star-studded closing night awards ceremony when it goes underway from 23 to 25 October at the legendary Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
On October 23, the festival will present the long anticipated North American premiere of Haik Gazarian‘s Venezzia that stars two of Latin America ‘s hottest talents, Alfonso Herrera and Ruddy Rodriguez.
Joining Gazarian at the red carpet premiere will be co-stars Herrera, one of Mexico‘s most popular actors and former member of the Grammy-nominated pop group RBD, and Rodriguez, a former Miss World Venezuela, whose more than two decades in television and film have garnered her a legion of devoted fans in the Spanish speaking world and beyond.
More than 50 feature films, shorts, documentaries, music videos and animations will screen during the festival. "There‘s an incredible buzz around the films we‘ve been able to get this year. Our programming department tracked the global film festival scene for the last year and singled out the exemplary films relating to Armenians or made by Armenian filmmakers, says Arpa Festival director Alex Kalognomos.
The documentary line up includes Anjar: Flowers, Goats and Heroes a film about the history of the people of Musa Dagh by Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Noura Kevorkian, Autumn of the Magician an homage to legendary Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra and Armenia‘s official selection in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2010 Academy Awards; Komitas Hairig that tells the story of the beloved Komitas Vardapet; Husher a film which documents the testimony of Armenian Genocide survivors who settled in Italy; and Whispering Memories the story of a community of Armenians in Turkey who stayed behind during the genocide and silently converted to Islam.
Among the competitive short film category are films like Hove starring Olympia Dukakis. Actor-Writer-Director Shant Hamassian‘s Spaceman on Earth, which debuted at this year‘s Cannes Film Festival will be featured in a program of shorts by Los Angeles filmmakers.
