"Endless Corridor" to join Milan film festival

By Amina Nazarli - AzerNews

Documentary “Endless Corridor” by Lithuanian Aleksandras Brokas about the Khojaly genocide will join film festival in Italy this autumn.

The impressive Milan IFF 2015 film festival to be held in November will put the film on the display in “Best Short Film”, “Best Cinematography in a Documentary” and “Best Documentary Editing” nominations.

The premiere of the documentary was held on July 1 last year at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Gerald Rafshoon (US), a Grammy Award winner, and Aleksandras A. Brokas (Lithuania) are the documentary's producers.

Narrated by renowned British actor Jeremy Irons, the documentary includes memorable video materials from the meetings of Lithuanian journalist Richard Lapaitis, an eyewitness of the Khojaly tragedy and another survivor of the massacre who some 20 years later return to Azerbaijan.

Those stories tell of the historical and cultural importance of the Nagorno-Karabakh region for Azerbaijan.

The film refers to some new facts, documents and footages and photos about the Khojaly genocide. The realities of the massacre are conveyed to the viewers in an impressive way.

The Khojaly genocide was committed by the Armenian armed forces. Some 613 civilians mostly women and children were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 people were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one parent.

As part of the Justice for Khojaly campaign, the presentation of "Endless Corridor" has been held in Istanbul, Ankara, Rome, Vilnius, London, Paris, Dublin, Berlin, Bern and Luxembourg.

Being originally in English, the documentary was translated into Azerbaijani, Turkish, French, Italian, and German for subtitles.

Earlier, the film was awarded the “Best of Show Award” in the US-based Accolade Global Film Competition, held in California.

Two more awards came from Tenerife International Film Festival in July, where the film was declared to be the "Best Documentary", and Aleksandras Brokas the "Best Director of a Documentary."

Commenting the success of the film Brokas said: “Such huge international attention to Endless Corridor shows that the story of this documentary is very important for people all over the world. The painful lessons of history should finally be learned and the tragedy of Khojaly never repeated. But reality is different.”