Several films that have won prizes at the prestigious Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals will be shown at this year’s Golden Apricot Film Festival that kicks off in Yerevan on July 13.

Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep) a Turkish drama directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan that won the 2014 Palmed’Or at Cannes will be shown.

Others award winning films scheduled to be shown are:

Deux Jours, une nuit (Two days, one night) a 2014 French-language film directed by the Dardenne brothers. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.  It won the Sydney Film Prize at Sydney Film Festival and was also nominated for the CineMasters award at Munich Film Festival.

Black Coal, Thin Ice, a 2014 Chinese thriller film written and directed by Diao Yinan that won the Golden Bear award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

Also set to premiere in Armenia are two award winning documentaries: The 2013 Pays barbare (Barbaric Land), directed by the husband and wife team ofYervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, and Ukraine-born and Moscow-based filmmaker Vitaly Mansky’s The Book; dedicated to the tenth century Armenian monk, poet and theologian Greogory of Narek.

Golden Apricot will close with Adieu au Langage (Goodbye to Language) the latest work by Jean-Luc Godard.  The drama, shot in 3D, was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or in the main competition selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and shared winning the Jury Prize.

According to Tadevik Manoukyan (photo), who heads Golden Apricot's international liason office, it took intense negotiations to bring these films to Armenia .