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Watch Wally Sarkeesian Interview Joe Berlinger Documentary ‘Intent to Destroy’ examines Armenian genocide Video

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Joe Berlinger’s Armenian Genocide Film ‘Intent To Destroy’

Hollywood: Like the recent “Architects of Denial,” the documentary “Intent to Destroy” is another strong look at how an estimated 1.5 million Christian Armenians were murdered between 1915 and 1918 by the Ottoman Empire (which became the modern Republic of Turkey), and why, a century later, the Turkish government still does not formally accept the facts of this heinous massacre nor the use of the word “genocide.”

Director Joe Berlinger uniquely explores this complex, disturbing issue by embedding with the production of “The Promise,” Terry George’s sweeping romantic drama set against the events of the Armenian genocide. Berlinger then uses scenes, off-camera bits and on-set chats (with director George, producer Mike Medavoy and crew members) from that late-2015 shoot to help create a highly dimensional survey of what Armenians often call “The Great Crime.” (“The Promise,” which starred Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale, opened in April to mixed reviews and disappointing grosses.)

The documentary, divided into three chapters (“Death,” “Denial,” “Depiction”), also features a wealth of archival footage and photos, plus interviews with actor-writer Eric Bogosian, former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Marshall Evans, director Atom Egoyan (“Ararat”), and an array of authors and professors, all of which adds effective insight into the genocide, its longtime cultural and geopolitical ramifications, and America’s thorny place in the matter. It’s a masterful effort.

Armenian Genocide documentary “intent to destroy” to screen in New York and Los Angeles

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Armenian Genocide documentary Intent to Destroy

Armenian Genocide documentary Intent to Destroy

Celebrated Academy Award nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger’s Armenian Genocide documentary Intent to Destroy will be screened in New York and Los Angeles starting from November 10, System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian said in a Twitter post.

The powerful documentary emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed films at this year’s Tribeca and Hot Docs Film Festivals.

Berlinger’s thirteenth feature-length documentary embeds with an historic feature film on the set of Terry George’s The Promise as a powerful lens through which to explore the reality of the Armenian genocide and its subsequent campaign of denial and Hollywood censorship.

Through discussions with activists, historians, scholars and cast members from The Promise, Intent To Destroy  shows the tangled web of denial, responsibility and truth in the struggle to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Serj Tankian has composed the music for the film.

Documentary “Thirteen” to be screened at Moscow Cinema

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The documentary “Thirteen” dedicated to the four-day April war will be screened at Moscow Cinema in Yerevan. The premiere is scheduled on 15:00, May 14.

Syunik investment and development fund, which is the initiator of the project, reports, the film is about the military journey of the Armenian volunteers and their self-sacrifice displayed during the April war in 2016 in Nagorno Karabakh.

The film is produced by Paradiplomacy Production with the support of Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine.

They shall not perish: Armenian Genocide documentary to premiere in the US in April

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This April, public television stations across the United States will premiere They shall not perish: The Story of Near East Relief. The documentary is produced by Shant Mardirossian and award-winning writer/director George Billard, the Broadway World reports.

They Shall Not Perish details the unprecedented humanitarian efforts of thousands of Americans who saved a generation of orphans and refugees after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I.

The one-hour documentary film features the stories of American diplomats, missionaries and relief workers who, as witnesses to the Armenian Genocide, responded to a call to action and mobilized the largest non-governmental international humanitarian movement undertaken by American citizens. Motivated by nothing but a moral sense of duty, these men and women – among them industrialists, ambassadors, teachers, nurses, advertisers and Presidents – helped bring care and comfort to millions of suffering refugees in extremely harrowing circumstances.

Narrated by six-time Emmy award nominated actor Victor Garber, the film is set against a mix of historical footage, archival photographs and utilizes contemporary interviews from leading academic experts such as Taner Akçam, Peter Balakian and Keith David Watenpaugh. In addition, the letters of American officials, relief workers and orphans are brought to life through the voices of leading actors – Michael Aronov, Kathleen Chalfant, Dariush Kashani, Andrea Martin, Ron Rifkin, Tony Shalhoub and Kara Vedder – taking the audience on a journey from the depths of cruelty to the triumphs of survival.

Executive Producer Shant Mardirossian, inspired by his grandparents’ escape and survival during the genocide, says he produced this film “not just to remember those we lost in the genocide, but to shed light on an important chapter of American history when ordinary citizens stood together against a great injustice and saved the lives of 132,000 orphans.” These historic rescue efforts led to the formation of the Near East Relief – known today as the Near East Foundation – an organization that continues to help improve the lives of vulnerable communities and refugees throughout the Middle East and Africa by implementing innovative, community-led economic development initiatives.

With a focus on an often forgotten yet important chapter in American history, They Shall Not Perish challenges the notion of what values a nation should aspire to demonstrate, and raises the question of when and if humanitarian concerns should override strategic national interests. “Today, as we confront an exploding refugee crisis, it’s imperative that we consider the humanitarian consequences when formulating U.S. foreign policy”, says the film’s director, producer and writer George Billard.

Distributed nationally by 3 Roads Communications, They Shall Not Perish premieres on public television stations nationwide beginning April 1, 2017.

The official premiere and discussion with the filmmakers will take place on April 8, 2017 at the Times Center.

Armenian Genocide documentary to premiere in Istanbul on February 9

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Armenian-Genocide-documentary-premiere-Istanbul Armenian Genocide documentary “The Children of Vank” will premiere at Istanbul’s Beyoglu Cinema on February 9, Ermenihaber.am reports.

The documentary is a story about Armenian family that survived the Dersim Massacre in 1938. All members of the family were driven away and lived in different cultures and beliefs.

Zeynep is a schoolteacher who lives in Izmir. In 2000s, she accidentally learns that her mother is an Armenian woman born in Dersim (Tunceli). Following the 1938 Massacre, she was given out for adoption and her name was changed to Fatma Kiremitci from AslihanKiremitciyan, her ethnic identity and belief changed to Turkish and Sunni.

She organizes a reunion with some of her mother’s relatives in the village that her mother lived. She traces the stories of her mother and tries to feel and appreciate what she lived in her childhood. Zeynep learns more about the village named Vank and its monastery.

The documentary was screened in Yerevan as part of the Golden Apricot Film Festival in 2016.

Pasadena: Today January 16, Screening Documentary Armenian “Havresc” Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.

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ARMENIAN CILICIA EVANGELICAL CHURCH
339 S. Santa Anita Ave.
Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.

Monday, January 16, 2017 screening of HAVRESC STAND ON COURAGE in Pasadena, CA. – please come and learn about the Brave Armenian Village in Iraq.

Filmmaker David Ritter has shot a documentary about a remarkable Armenian village somewhere in Iraq with about 200 to 500 people. It is surviving through courage, faith, fortitude and about 22 dedicated men against the massive force of the Islamic State group. Its name, Havresc, translates to big revenge, and its history dates back to 1915, when survivors of the Genocide constructed it, The Armenian Mirror-Spectator reports.

On December 8, the Zohrab Information Center hosted Ritter, who has spent months in the village, who presented his documentary titled, “Havresc, Stand on Courage”, to a large audience, detailing the daily struggles of Armenian and Assyrian Christian Iraqis and the village they have built on the edge of IS-controlled territory.

Ritter was introduced by the Zohrab Center’s executive director, the Very Rev. Daniel Findikyan, who related that this issue “transcends ethnic interests. One doesn’t have to be Armenian to care about others.”

Before showing the film, Ritter who is not Armenian, commented that he was “filled with rage at the plight of the Christians, not about ethnicity,” he said, and praised the leader of the 22 soldiers, Murad Vartanian, whom he called “one of the most amazing men I have ever met, a man of conviction, courage, tenacity, and also a poet and an artist, a natural born leader.”

The documentary detailed the history of the Genocide with disturbing graphic images of death and destruction. It was a group of survivors from that tragedy that went to Iraq and built villages, including the mostly agricultural village of Havresc. In time, other persecuted Christians – Assyrians and Yezidis – also settled there. In 1975, many Christian villages were destroyed, including Havresc, with the villagers fleeing. One of the only buildings that remained were the ruins of the original school.

In 2006, many of the people of Havresc returned, and decided to rebuild their homes, churches and schools. Armenians also came from abroad and helped in the construction. Vartanian, who was originally born in the village, led the effort, and with other villagers created a communal system where goods are shared. They also erected a monument to the victims of the Genocide.

Today, it is 22 young and old men led by Vartanian, who protect the village 24 hours a day against ISIS. Kurdish militias are also helping these 22 soldiers. The film showed Murad’s home which is the headquarters of the militia, and houses an armory of weapons. Also seen are the villagers tending to their flocks of sheep and peacefully farming the land. In the future, a small airport will be built.

Shortly after the film was completed, Vartanian was shot by IS. He is now recovering, and has said, “Even trees need water to live. We are like these old trees. We never give up. Let us live like lions, and if need be, die like lions.”

Ritter was born to a Roman Catholic family in Haiti. He is a documentarian who has gone to areas of the world where Christian communities are in danger, and filmed their struggles. He is currently traveling to Armenian communities and showing this documentary of Havresc . He announced that 30 percent of the proceeds of the DVD will go back to Havresc. Already, he said, $2,000 has been raised.

Source: https://zohrabcenter.org/2016/11/22/havresc-an-armenian-christian-village-in-northern-iraq-standing-down-isis/

Vanessa Kachadurian: historical documentary “Women of 1915”, strength and survival of women helping women.. Video

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historical documentary "Women of 1915" Director/Producer: Bared Maronian

historical documentary “Women of 1915”
Director/Producer: Bared Maronian

Posted by Vanessa Kachadurian

Director/Producer: Bared Maronian

The documentary WOMEN OF 1915 combines facts and emotion to honor these brave women of the Armenian Genocide, many of whom lost their lives, survived to create new lives, or were forced into lives that were not their own. Many women, Armenian, European, and American, also traveled great distances to rescue lives, even at the risk of their own. Among the women highlighted in the film are survivors, volunteers, and resisters, including survivor Aurora Mardiganian, American volunteer Mary Louise Graffam, diplomat Diana Apkar, and Danish missionary Maria Jacobsen.

The truth about genocides and wars throughout history, women have played a huge part in the survival of entire nations down to saving their villages.  This documentary will premiere at the ARPA Film Festival, Saturday November 5, 2016 @ 3:45 pm at the historical Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles

http://www.arpafilmfestival.com/documentary-film-women-1915-bared-m…

Marie Jacobsen “Mama Jacobsen” was a Danish Lutheran missionary, who traveled in 1915 from Denmark to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) when she learned of the extermination of Armenians within its boundaries and on forced death marches to the Syrian desert. More than 1.5 million were killed in what has come to be known as the Armenian Genocide.

Jacobsen worked in the hospitals assisting Armenian people. The records she kept during this time have been credited as some of the most meaningful proof of the genocide, which Turkey still disputes. During her time in the eastern Ottoman Empire, she encountered numerous orphans of parents who were taken away by Turkish forces.

Her greatest work was directed at these orphans who she was able to find refuge for in Lebanon. She is credited by the Armenian people for saving the lives of up to 3,000 orphans during the genocide; children she hid in her care. She adopted three orphaned children. She found one by the side of a road, another was hiding in a tree.

When the genocide ended in 1922, Jacobsen moved many of the children to an orphanage she established near Beirut, Lebanon. She was buried there following her death in 1960.

Learn about many more great women who left the comforts of their home to help people they don’t even know across the globe.  Brave Women is what keeps our species alive and well, Women fighting for human rights !!!

http://santamariatimes.com/danish-missionary-to-be-honored-at-betha…

Source: http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/vanessa-kachadurian-historical-documentary-women-of-1915-strength

 

First-hand look inside the Gülen Movement and its schools “KILLING ED 2016 Arpa IFF BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM NOMINEE”

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killing-edDirector/Producer: Mark S Hall
With Interviews of: Dr. Diane Ravitch, Sharon Higgins, Vincent Tovar

KILLING ED is a 94 minute feature film by award-winning director, Mark S. Hall, that exposes a shocking truth: that the largest network of taxpayer-funded charter schools in the U.S. hide a worst-case-scenario— that they are operated with questionable academic, labor, and H1-B visa standards by members of the “Gülen Movement” – a rapidly expanding, global Islamic group whose leader, Fethullah Gülen, lives in self-imposed exile in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania USA. Gülen has been accused of leading a violent coup in July, 2016 to overthrow the Turkish government. KILLING ED provides its audiences with a shocking, first-hand look inside the Gülen Movement and its schools – with never before seen interviews and hidden camera footage – while revealing the corruption of those attempting to privatize public schools in the USA.”

Notable screenings, awards and mentions:

Tallgrass Film Festival 2015
Julien Dubuque International Film Festival 2016 (Best Documentary Nominee)
Glendale International Film Festival 2016

Saturday, November 5, 2016 – 12:00 PM
Documentary Program 3
SPIELBERG Theatre, Egyptian Theatre
BUY TICKETS

Please note, Arpa IFF organizers reserve the right to make any necessary changes in scheduling.

Kansas students make documentary on American nurse who rescued orphaned Armenian children

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kansas-armenian-prphansLast November, a group of middle school students in Mayetta, Kansas, USA, began work on a documentary about Emma Darling Cushman—an American nurse who rescued thousands of Armenian children who had been orphaned during the genocide, reported cjonline.

When the Ottomans were expelling westerners from their territory after entering World War I, Cushman remained in Konya, Turkey, to continue operating a hospital she had worked at for over a decade. After the genocide began, she turned the hospital into an orphanage, found safe homes for endangered children and tried to bring shattered families back together.

Luke Boyden, one of these students, explained that this was extremely dangerous at a time when Ottoman forces were actively searching for Armenians.

Beyond the research these students conducted, they interviewed experts on Armenian Genocide, such as Richard Hovannisian, and Sara Cohan.

In addition to a $7,500 prize, the students’ documentary earned them the privilege of providing the inscription for Cushman’s headstone at the American Cemetery in Cairo, Egypt. They chose “Emma Darling Cushman: A Light in the Darkness.”

Los Angeles: Documentaries “Orphans of the Genocide” and “Uprooted” to Air on KCET

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472016_110742_1LOS ANGELES— Documentary “Orphans of the Genocide” will be featured on April 24 at 1:30 p.m. PT on KCET, while documentary “Uprooted” will premiere at 8 p.m. ET/PT nationwide on Link TV (DirecTV Channel 375 and Dish Network Channel 9410) and at 7 p.m. PT in Southern California on KCET.

“Orphans of the Genocide,” Emmy award-winning Director Bared Maronian’s critically-acclaimed documentary, sheds light on crimes against humanity and tells part of a larger story of the Armenian genocide of 1915 through the eyes of some of its more than 130,000 orphaned children. The documentary focuses on one orphanage, Antoura, where 1,000 children orphaned by the Armenian genocide lived and were forcefully converted to Turkish beliefs and culture during World War I. The film features never-before-seen archival footage as well as recently discovered memoirs of orphans.

“Uprooted” is a documentary from Producer and Director Hagop Goudsouzian that traces the evolution of Armenian culture, identity and heritage. Research in “Uprooted” weaves together stories in an attempt to answer the question of what being Armenian means in America today. Goudsouzian’s personal and passionate film features interviews with expert sources who continue to delve into the critical elements of Armenian identity.

As an additional way for KCET and Link TV programming to amplify the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, viewers who tune-in to the broadcast will have the opportunity to receive DVD copies of “Uprooted” as a gift for a $60 donation, or acclaimed filmmaker Hagop Goudsouzian’s DVD trilogy set of “Armenian Exile, My Son Shall Be Armenian” and “Uprooted” for a $150 donation.

In addition to the broadcast documentaries, KCET.org is offering multimedia content that showcases stories that allow users to further explore more history on Armenian heritage:

–I Am Armenian: The Intriguing Life of Aurora Mardiganian
–Visiting With Huell Howser: Armenian Christmas Meal, [www.kcet.org/shows/visiting-with-huell-howser/episodes/armenian-christmas-meal]
–Subtle Commemoration: Pasadena’s Armenian Genocide Memorial, [ www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/subtle-commemoration-pasadenas-armenian-genocide-memorial]
–Armenian-American Artists Reflect the Diaspora Experience, [ www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/armenian-american-artists-reflect-the-diaspora-experience]