Epress.am News from Armenia
A group of Facebook activists have asked the Park Cinema in Baku to cancel its planned Feb. 21 screening of the Russian film August Eighth — the title referencing the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008, Regnum reports.
The group calls the screening unacceptable in Azerbaijan, “where Armenia carried out aggression with Russia’s support.” Seeing parallels with Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, they believe the film justifies Russian aggression against Georgia (in South Ossetia), and endorses Russian hegemony in the South Caucasus.
The theatre administration was warned that if the screening proceeded as planned, the group would conduct a public campaign to boycott the film.
In response to the “concern of Azerbaijani society”, the theatre cancelled the screening and removed advertisements for the film.
Director Janik Faiziyev co-wrote the film with American screenwriter Michael A. Lerner. The plot follows a divorced woman from Moscow who sends her 7-year-old son to Tskhinvali, Georgia, to be with his father, when the August 2008 war erupts and she must travel to the front lines to save her son. In between, she battles giant robots and other sci-fi elements. Shooting took place in Moscow, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.