Yesterday, the "Golden Apricot" Film Festival in Yerevan opened with Laurent Tuel’s film "Le Premier Cercle", starring the famous French actor Jean Reno. Jean Reno plays Milo Malakian the ruthless godfather of an Armenian crime family in southern France. While the closing credits were being shown, one elderly man rose to his feet and shouted out that the film had misrepresented the Armenian character; all the while others in the audience were clapping. To be honest, the reaction of the audience was mixed, as witnessed by the conversations overheard in the Moscow Cinema lobby. At the start of the film, there's a short reference made to Armenians seeking refuge in France in 1920 and the difficulties they faced in a new and strange land. This and the fact that the last name of the Jean Reno character and his son is "Malakian" are the only actual ties to anything Armenian. Laurent Tuel, the film's director, is an Italian by birth. He has stated that he wanted to make a movie dealing especially with Armenians since he knows little of Armenia and its people. "I worked on this film for two years. It is about exodus of Armenians to France and their situation in the 1920's. Today, their descendants make-up a large community but the public perception of Armenians in France is still not clear. I'm really not familiar with the Armenian community and that's why I decided to shoot a film about them. Don't get me wrong. It's not that there have been precedents of Armenians being gangsters. It's simply that I wanted to use this theme as a basis to present their history," the director said.