RADIO YEREVAN
A film by NARINE MKRTCHYAN and ARSEN AZATYAN
RADIO YEREVAN
Synopsis
A refrigerator truck loaded with humanitarian aid arrives in Armenia. The drivers are unable to locate the road to Yerevan and keep looking for it. Parallel to this a string of ludicrous stories unfolds, and, if you ask us, this is Radio Yerevan per se.
Perhaps this could be considered a simplified rendering of the main plot, which is definitely not the case. The truck is not important, neither is the fact that the drivers only find Yerevan upon leaving it, nor even the chain of extremely ludicrous events, nor the retro scenes of the 60ís in the memories of the small boy, nor the radio effects that fiddle with reality, nor even the eroticism. Both the plot and the contents of this film defy rendering, they can be expressed through a couple of poetic images: within the depth of your blue eyes my heart is yearning for the golden splash.
This is authors cinema evolving around the famous Radio Yerevan theme.
Directors statement
The need for this film today was hanging in the air and imminent in the atmosphere. It is rather an expression, inexplicably labeled Radio Yerevan, of this very moment and state, for which we have assumed responsibility.
The film is short to the extent of not making it to know the important from the irrelevant, black from white, the hour from the second – it is laughter you wouldn’t want to share with others, like secret self – implicated flagellation.
Who knows whether it’s true or false, heads or tails – We simply attempted at opening up the innermost, fragile and most cherished layers of our egos, and the survival instinct makes us laugh.
The laughter drives us insane.
Our country is at war today and it scares us. We’re scared, we get fight braver, confront death more daringly and end up laughing.
What makes us laugh, is it war, is it death, or is it braveness?
We do not aspire to provide ready answers with the film, we’re in the same boat with you. We merely cry out about what you hear in the outcry.
Take it or leave it – this is our expression of the self.
CAST & CREW
RADIO YEREVAN
Narine Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
International Film Festival Rotterdam 1993
Armenia
1993
35mm
80′
Armenian
Narine Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
Aysor-Plus Film Productions
with Rotterdam International Film Festival
Aysor-Plus Film Productions
Narine Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
Albert Yavuryan
Nariné Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
Areg Azatyan, Karen Mirijanyan, Ashot Jenterechyan, Armen Jenterechyan, Evelina Shahiryan, Pilipe van Dorne, Joseph Nalbandyan, Artem Akopov, Armen Mirzakhanyan, Nariné Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
Venyavsky, L.V. Bethoven, V. A. Mozart, J. Bach, J.Haydn, Sayat-Nova
Narine Mkrtchyan, Arsen Azatyan
Armen Sahakyan