Apricot Tree · since 2015
Established in 2015 by Filmadaran Film Culture Development NGO, Apricot Tree (ATIEFF) is a documentary film festival that takes place annually in an Armenian village in late Summer. The first edition took place in Yerevan, the second was a split between Yerevan, the city of Gyumri and the village of Ujan. Finally, in 2017 the festival established itself in Ujan for the next 6 years. In 2023, the festival moved to the village of Debed in Lori.
The idea to organize a village film festival came from the desire to decentralize the cultural life in Armenia, where the vast majority of cultural events take place in the capital city of Yerevan and the rural population is basically devoid of opportunities of coming into contact with international and even local art. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, villages were mostly ignored by cultural policy makers for three decades. Apricot Tree has an aim of righting this wrong and making the rural population an active and integral part of modern Armenian cultural life.
The festival format has already bore fruits. The Grand Prize winner of the 2017 edition Shahram Badakhshan Mehr was so enchanted by the village atmosphere and his host family that he came back to Ujan in 2019 and shot a feature-length Iranian-Armenian coproduction docudrama Ujan Story, which had its world premiere as the opening film of the VII Apricot Tree IDFF in 2021. Similarly in 2022, Swedish director and festival participant Knutte Wester shot a short documentary in Armenia’s Syunik region called The Border Within Us, which premiered during the closing ceremony of the XI Apricot Tree IDFF in 2025.
The festival organizers strongly believe that only by coming into contact with the other do we grasp ourselves. By grasping ourselves, we seek to understand and get to know the other and by understanding, we start to sympathize with them. In contrast, the unknown and the unclear generate fear, distrust and enmity. Understanding the life, manners and traditions, struggles and experiences of other nations, tribes, social and religious groups – this is what Apricot Tree calls for and aspires to. And nothing can realize that aspiration better and more effectively, than a week-long coexistence in the same space of people from various parts of the world, and also “documentary” cinema, which lets the audience not only see, but also sympathize with the reality on screen.
The festival screens documentary films of all genres, including ethnographic, anthropological, experimental and even animated. Non-competition programs include tributes to renowned filmmakers and special screenings. In total, the festival screens around 30-40 films every year.
In 2026, the Feature-length and Short Film Competition programs present 21 films. The Non-Competitive Section celebrates the 100th anniversary of distinguished filmmaker Herz Frank, while the "Faces" program screens three films dedicated to exceptional figures, who are nearly forgotten today. The "Special Screenings" section pays tribute to renowned Iranian director Farhad Varahram, a member of this year's jury, and presents new works by past jury members, French-Armenian director Jacques Kébadian and Iranian director Hadi Afarideh.
In 2019, the festival also established the Film School, where village kids and teenagers learned to develop their artistic ideas and make their own short documentary films under the guidance of Filmadaran’s experts. The films, created within the frames of the school, are traditionally screened at the closing ceremony of the festival. Just as in 2025, the 2026 Film School is led by Italian filmmaker and educator Marta Violante and the program is implemented with the support of the Embassy of Italy in Armenia.
In 2025, the Emerging Filmmakers' Residency was launched, led that year by Bulgarian director and artistic director of Brussels' Millenium Film Festival, Zlatina Rousseva. As part of the residency, participants from various countries shoot a film over 8 days in Debed, which is then screened during the festival's closing ceremony. In 2026, the workshop is conducted by Portuguese documentary filmmakers Daniel Barroca and Catarina Laranjeiro, with 6 emerging directors participating from Armenia, Georgia, and Iran. Much like the Film School, the Emerging Filmmakers' Residency is becoming an integral part of the festival.