YEREVAN, JUNE 1, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. Like the previous years, works by Armenian film directors living in different countries will compete in the Golden Apricot (Voske Tsiran) Yerevan Third International Film Festival's "Armenian Panorama" contest program. As cinema critic Mikael Stamboltsian, Director of festival programs, mentioned in his interview to Noyan Tapan correspondent, though the compulsory condition for taking part in the program is being Armenian, they are free in the issue of choosing themes. "In the creative respect the subject's being Armenian becomes senseless as for the spectator the most important is the film's quality and not the director's origin or the circumstance of his being an Armenian," M.Stamboltsian emphasized. The Director of festival programs did not give any comment or estimation on the selected films. He just said that in the creative respect the films do not essentially differ from the works presented in the previous years: "There are succeeded and interesting films, there is also the opposite. Everything will be cleared up after the festival." M.Stamboltsian said that 25 films, from Canada, USA, France, Holland, Russia, Serbia and Armenia will compete in the three nominations of this program. One film, "Wedding Box," is a joint Russian-Kyrghyzian-German-French production. Its scenario was written by Yekaterina Trdatova from Moscow.

---