Feature Competition

Born in 1938 to a family of actors. He was accepted to the Armen Gulakyan studio to study acting at the Yerevan State Institute of Fine Arts in 1958. After graduating in 1963, he started working at the Theatre for Young Audience and then later at the Stanislavsky Russian State Theatre in Yerevan. Since 1964, he has been performing at Yerevan’s Hratchia Ghaplanyan Dramatic Theatre. In 1985 he was deemed worthy for the Armenian Republic Award, and in 1998, he received the “Movses Khorenatsi” medal. He is the bearer of many international honors ad awards for his work in both theatre and film. He really grabbed people’s attention with his performaces of Shakespearean characters such as: Clarence (Richard the 3rd), Hamlet, Julius Caesar. Also his Chekhov performances: Voinitsky (Uncle Vanya), Lopakhin (The Cherry Orchard), Herostratus (Grigory Gorin’s Forget Herostratus). He gained his film attention in Leonid Menaker’s Niccolo Paganini.

Born in 1959, has a BA in Film Production from Hunter College City University, NY-USA. Hashemian produced Journey to the Sun (1999), directed by Yesim Ustaoglu. Journey to the Sun received the Blue Angel Prize at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival; Best Film, Best Director, Fipresci Prize and the Audience Award at the 1999 Istanbul Film Festival, among others. His other films are Summersalt in the Coffin (1997), by Dervis Zaimoglu and Manhatan by Numbers (1993), directed by Amir Naderi.

With a background as a respected journalist on the progressive “Hankyoreh Newspaper” (1987 - 2004), An Cheong-sook was also Editor-in-Chief of Korea's leading film magazine “Cine21”. Previously on the first KOFIC board of commissioners that was instated in 1999, she was also a research fellow at the University of California. Elected chairperson of the new board of commissioners in 2005, An is a member of the Women In Film Korea board of directors as well.