By Alexander Srmabekian and Bedros-Ara Oruncakciel
The 23rd edition of Armenia’s Golden Apricot Film Festival will introduce a new AI filmmaking workshop as part of its industry platform, GAIFF Pro. The festival will run from July 12 to 19 at Moscow Cinema in Yerevan.
This year’s festival jury will be headed by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner, known for her psychological dramas including Little Joe (2019) and Lourdes (2009). Rounding out the jury will be the Argentinian César Award-winning actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Irish-Scottish film history documentarian Mark Cousins, artistic director of Berlin’s Gorki Theater Şermin Langhoff, and Canadian producer Mark Peranson.
The festival awards prizes in three competition categories: International Competition, Regional Competition, and the Apricot Stone Short Film Competition. In each category, a Golden Apricot is awarded to the best film, while a Silver Apricot serves as the special jury prize. This year’s new AI filmmaking workshop will be led by AI filmmakers Lilit Barseghyan, whose feature film Unknown Artefact won Best AI Film at the AI International Film Festival in Hollywood this January, and Vahan Setoyan, a specialist in AI-driven creative production. The festival's embrace of AI comes amid broader debates within the film industry over how the technology should be used in creative work.
Participants will receive a screenplay and work together to produce and edit a short film using AI tools over the course of the three-day program. The English-language workshop is open to film professionals from Armenia, Georgia, and Iran.
"Projects created with artificial intelligence and AI-powered workflows have already become an integral part of our industry," said Nare Leone Ter-Gabrielyan, head of GAIFF Pro Industry. "We should not ignore these changes but instead find ways to incorporate them into film production ethically and effectively."
"Artificial intelligence is evolving at such a rapid speed that traditional educational systems often struggle to keep up," said Setoyan. "It is therefore crucial that industry professionals acquire this knowledge as early as possible."
AI-assisted production has been developing in Armenia, with the animated film Little Mher, released in theaters this month, becoming the region’s first feature-length film produced with the assistance of AI. The technology was used primarily in the film’s visual production, drawing on hundreds of photographs of Armenian villages, landscapes, and objects collected during location scouting.
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