Don Askarian

Don Askarian was born in 1949, in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh. In 1967 he went to Moscow and studied history and art. He worked as an assistant-director and film critic for a year after his study. In 1978 he emigrated from USSR to West Berlin.

For the last 20 years he has lived and worked in Germany. He was a prize-winner at several international film festivals. He is perhaps the only director whose 'purely Armenian' films have been professionally distributed and proved financially successful in Germany, Japan, Holland and England.

His first film was "The Bear" (direction, scripts, costumes and scenery), based on Chekhov's story (1983-1984). From 1985-1988 he made "Komitas", which won several prizes at international film festivals.

Retrospectives and special screenings of his films took place at the Philadelphia Filmfest of World, Cinema '93' Int'l Filmfest Figueira da Foz '93(Portugal)' Int'l Filmfest Sao Paulo '93' Tokyo Int'l Filmfest 1994 (in Kyoto).

As a producer, Don Askarian has been involved in the film industry since 1982 when he founded Margarita Woskanian Film Production. In 1995 he founded the production and distribution companies - Don Film in Armenia and in 1998 Askarian Film in Germany. TV channels, distribution companies and film funds in Germany, France, England, Belgium, Greece, Switzerland, Japan, and The Netherlands etc. are habitual co-producers and buyers of the films by Don Film and Askarian Film.

In 1996 his book "Dangerous Light" was published in Armenia. The book (192 pages) contains the screenplays "In Noraduz", "Komitas", "Avetik" and essays "Chekhov and Cinema", "Dangerous Light", "An Open Letter" by Don Askarian, interviews and reviews from the world press as well as filmography and biographical sketch, with about 60 colour and b/w photography's from the films and the book begins with an introduction by famous German film critic Peter W. Jansen.

The documentary film "Parajanov" was produced 1998, in co-production with ARTE. It was shown at IFFR 1999. At this moment he's working on feature films, "San Lazzaro", and "In Noraduz"...