Bonded Parallels tells two love stories, one set in Norway during the Second World War, and the other in Armenia in 1988. After the film was screened to an enthusiastic audience outside the competition in Locarno last August, director Hovhannes Galstyan described how his journey began.
How did you begin your career in film-making in Armenia?
In short, I would say it was mainly thanks to the AVANTI cinema training project for film-makers and producers, funded by the SDC, that started it all for me, as well as for some other colleagues from my region. With the fall of the Soviet Union, all structures simply disappeared, including the film industry which, until then, had been largely subsidised along with the schools, production houses, distribution and many cinemas. Ten years ago when I learnt that the AVANTI project had been launched, I signed up and got the chance to develop further in this career.
What did you learn?
In 2003, the AVANTI programme gave me the chance to find a partner to work with and taught me how to make a film, from the initial script through to production. This knowledge allowed us to believe in ourselves, to become known, and opened the door to professional film-making. For me, it was a film school I would not have been able to go to before, and was like a bridge for us. We moved away from local cinema, which was something we could already do, and this led us to the other side, to the development of more serious cinema.