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Elton John to Introduce #ArmenianGenocide film ‘The Promise’ at Oscar Viewing Party

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Elton-john

Elton John to introduce Armenian Genocide film ‘The Promise’ at his 25th annual Academy Awards Viewing Party on Feb. 26, 2017

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—At the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF)’s 25th annual Academy Awards Viewing Party to be held on Sunday, February 26, at West Hollywood Park, Sir Elton John and David Furnish will introduce Open Road and Survival Pictures new film – The Promise – which tells the story of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey at the outset of World War I. Written by Terry George and Robin Swicord and directed by Terry George (Hotel Rwanda), The Promise stars Oscar Issac, Christian Bale, and Charlotte Le Bon.

“We have only to look at the horrific HIV/AIDS outbreak that followed in the wake of the Rwandan genocide in the mid-1990s to understand the direct connection between human rights atrocities and public health crises like the AIDS epidemic,” said EJAF Founder Elton John. “Through our friendships with the Manoukian family and producer Dr. Eric Esrailian from UCLA, David and I became more personally aware of the Armenian Genocide and its timely relevance to social issues today. The film’s theme #KeepThePromise can be interpreted as keeping the promise to remember and learn from the atrocities of the past, as well as keeping the promise to end AIDS. At EJAF, we are committed to #KeepThePromise and raise awareness about this powerful film that uses classic storytelling to inspire people to take action today. We are honored to share the important timing of our Oscar-night event to introduce people to The Promise.”

In addition to sharing EJAF’s vision for championing human rights, The Promise team at Survival Pictures has taken the unprecedented step of making the commitment to donate all proceeds from the film to nonprofit organizations including EJAF and other human rights and humanitarian groups. As part of this commitment and to inspire Party guests to give generously, Survival Pictures will match the pledges guests make to EJAF via text and live auction purchases made during EJAF’s Academy Awards Viewing Party with the goal of making this a record-setting evening.

“Such giving has never happened with a film of this scale, we wanted the world to know about it, and we are incredibly grateful,” said EJAF Chairman David Furnish. “We are honored to announce this generosity, thanks to the late philanthropist and humanitarian Kirk Kerkorian, on the eve of EJAF’s 25th annual Academy Awards Viewing Party. Not only is The Promise committing to support EJAF’s work, but matching funds will be provided to inspire donors even more throughout the event and live auction.”

Survival Pictures has also developed a social impact campaign for The Promise to help educate the global public about the genocides and mass atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries, the discussion about the legal definition of genocide, and historical denialism. The impact campaign will inform and inspire people to take action so they become part of the anti-genocide movement led by human rights organizations like EJAF as well as change-makers dedicated to ending crimes against humanity and bringing perpetrators to justice.

The film sets a love story in the midst of the growing unrest in 1914 Turkey leading up to the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. As the Great War looms, the mighty Ottoman Empire is crumbling. Constantinople, the once vibrant, multicultural capital on the shores of the Bosporus, is about to be consumed by chaos. Michael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) arrives in the cosmopolitan hub as a medical student determined to bring modern medicine back to Siroun, his ancestral village in Southern Turkey where Turkish Muslims and Armenian Christians have lived side by side for centuries. Photo-journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale) has come here only partly to cover geo-politics. He is mesmerized by his love for Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), an Armenian artist he has accompanied from Paris after the sudden death of her father. When Michael meets Ana, their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men. As the Turks form an alliance with Germany and the Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to survive even as events threaten to overwhelm them. Promises are made and promises are broken. The one promise that must be kept is to live on and tell the story.

“The Armenian Genocide must, of course, never be forgotten and should be recognized, but our current headlines show that the same patterns of human rights violations are being replicated in too many parts of the world today,” said producer Dr. Eric Esrailian. “We are honored to have the support of Elton, David, and the entire EJAF family, and by joining forces, we can help the people in the world who need assistance right now.”

Lena Kalyan. React to the film, The Ottoman Lieutenant ‘Trailer’

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By Lena Kalyan

I have recently watched the ‘Trailer, film, where is an intension to introduce the small part of the huge tragical historical event: the ethnic cleansing of Armenian nation in 1915 and after.

The Turkish political representatives and the fake historians avoiding to name Genocide this historical event, even they brought up the new generations who trying to creat artificial reasons to reject criminal and guilty past of Ottoman murderer dynasty.

The positive side of the film is that author trying remind  the horrific events against Christianity when Armenian people has been the biggest losers: not just they lost the motherland and the rich culture also physically wiped away, more than the half of nation most brutally murdered.

In the film there is a visible intention: the  fine way the film makers introducing the Turkish soldier’s humanitarian character that he was trying to be helpful to the victims in horrific situation.

This is a real myth.

We should understand very important fact, the real mentality of the Turkish militants.

In this civilised world the Turkish soldiers don’t show any humanity and sorrow to the Kurds and without conches they kill fighting Kurdish woman and civilians.  How it happened the Turkish soldier in his uniform revealed  extraordinary humanity  during the First World War when bloodthirsty ottomans had the ‘holy plans’ in their murderer heads to kill the Armenian nation and obtain their wealth and the land.

This film may be has some good intentions but doesn’t look realistic.
I can see more political intension that intention to introduce the real historical fact.
I believe they want confirm that it was just a unfortunate historical event between two nations and avoid to confirm that historical event was a carefully designed GENOCIDE.

Armenian Genocide it’s not a source for romantic creations.
It is a brutal fact, it needs to introduce the realistic way and put pressure on Turkish politicians and the historians to face to their GUILTY past.

This will be the start of the real HUMANITY.

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.

Festival of Vigen Chaldranyan’s film series “Silence” to be held in Glendale

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The festival of prominent Armenian Director Vigen Chaldranyan’s film series entitled “Silence” will be screened at Glendale MGN Cinema House from February 20-24.

According to the report by Asbarez.com, one of the last films in the series full-length feature “The Silence of the Master” was presented in Los Angeles in May, 2016. The time the feature will be screened along with other works of the film-maker “Dzain Barbaroi”, “Symphony of Silence”.

According to the source all the revenue of the event will be donated to Hamazgayin State Theatre “Sos Sargsyan”.

To note, Chaldranyan, is the artistic director at Hamazgayin Theatre.

 

Source Panorama.am

“VIDEO” The film “The Other Side of Home”, Genocide doc screens in New York ahead of Oscar nomination vote

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(From left to right) The Other Side of Home producer, Rob Fried, director Naré Mkrtchyan, and actor-writer, Eric Bogosian during Q&A

The film “The Other Side of Home”, which is under consideration for an Academy Award for short documentary, was shown to film industry members, including members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at New York’s Soho House. The final five nominees for the category will be announced Tuesday, January 24, Asbarez reports.

Actor-writer Eric Bogosian gave the introduction at the event, which included the director, Naré Mkrtchyan and producer, Rob Fried.

“I’m so thankful that this film was chosen as one of the final ten candidates for an Academy Award,” said Mkrtchyan. “As a grandchild of survivors of the Armenian Genocide this means a lot to me. In a way, it’s a confirmation that this topic which has been silenced for so long is universally understood, that it’s one worth telling, and one that audiences would like to see.”

“It’s a very powerful story, told in a very modern and engaging way,” said Chris Parnagian, who attended the screening and was among the donors who contributed to the event.

Conceived, directed and narrated by Mkrtchyan, the 40-minute documentary follows her on a trip Turkey in April, 2015, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

https://youtu.be/fYxu5Gn07rc

In the film, Naré visits Maya, a Turkish woman who recently discovered that her great grandmother was a “hidden” Armenian Genocide survivor. Through interviews conducted in Turkey and Armenia, Maya reveals her emotional struggle to reconcile her dual identity, compounded by generations of official denial by Turkey.

The filmmakers answered questions about the film’s behind-the-scenes process; Among them – how the filmmaker found the subject, Maya, about traveling through Turkey during the genocide centennial, about Naré’s sometimes difficult discussions with Maya about genocide recognition.

Related links:

Asbarez. ‘The Other Side of Home’ Screens in New York Preceding Oscar Nomination Vote

Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin delays Turkish film on murdered Armenian journalist DINK

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Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin says a film he wants to make about the murdered Armenian journalist Hrant Dink remains on ice because no Turkish actor was ready to play the lead role. Dink was shot dead in 2007.

Akin, who has collected a string of German and European cinema awards over 2 decades, told Saturday’s edition of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos on Saturday that the risks for Turkish actors were still too high and so he had put the project “in the freezer.”

Dink was shot dead by a teenage Turkish ultranationalist on a busy Istanbul street in 2007, outside the offices of Agos.

The 52-year-old Dink had campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, who say that up to 1.5 million people were killed in 1915, during World War I, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

Turkey has long denied that the deaths amounted to a massacre, although in April Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of “our shared pain.”

Script ‘too strong’

Akin said he had drafted a very text-rich script based on 12 of Dink’s articles published in Agos.

“However, I couldn’t convince any actor from Turkey to accept the role of Hrant [Dink]; they all found the script too strong,” Akin said.

“I didn’t want to put any actor at risk, but it was also important that a film about Hrant would be a Turkish film,” he added. “An American or French actor couldn’t have been cast as Hrant. We have to deal with this alone.”

Different entry at Venice festival

Akin said instead he combined parts of the Dink script to complete a different film, “The Cut,” which will premier at Italy’s Venice International Film Festival later this month.

“The Cut,” starring French actor Tahar Rahim, tells the story of an Armenian man who survives the 1915 killings and embarks on a journey across the world to find his daughter.

Dink’s assassination drew international attention and grew into a wider scandal with accusations of a Turkish state conspiracy.

At his funeral, an estimated 200,000 people marched, chanting “We are all Armenians.”

In February this year, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Turkey as the world’s leading jailer of journalists.

ipj/slk (AFP, Reuters)

 

Florida premiere of Genocide-themed “Women of 1915” slated for Jan 19

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Award-winning filmmaker Bared Maronian’s latest documentary film “Women of 1915”

Award-winning filmmaker Bared Maronian’s latest documentary film “Women of 1915” will have its Florida premiere of at the Mardigian Hall in Boca Raton on January 19, The Armenian Weekly reports.

The film tells the story of heroic Armenian and non-Armenian women who, during the tumultuous years of the Armenian Genocide, played an instrumental role in saving the lives of the innocent.

The documentary premiered in New Jersey in June, in an event sponsored by the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) of Eastern USA and attended by hundreds.

“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,” Nayiri Panossian wrote in her coverage of the premiere for the Armenian Weekly.

The Armenian Weekly recently conducted a short interview with Maronian ahead of the Florida premiere of “Women of 1915.” The Florida premiere will take place at the Mardigian Hall in Boca Raton on January 19. The screening will be followed by a question/answer session and a reception.

Oscar Isaac Armenian Genocide Film ‘The Promise’ Goes to Open Road

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Terry George historical romance will hit theaters on April 28

By Matt Pressberg,

Open Road Films has acquired the U.S. rights for “The Promise,” a Terry George love story set during the Armenian genocide, TheWrap has learned. The movie will come out on April 28, 2017.

“The Force Awakens” star Oscar Isaac headlines the film, playing Michael Boghosian, an ethnic Armenian medical student living and studying in Constantinople. Christian Bale plays Chris Myers, a photojournalist in love with Armenian artist Ana (Charlotte Le Bon). The two men form a romantic rivalry over Ana, but as the Ottoman Empire aligns with Germany and starts cracking down on minorities, they have to work together to survive.

“The Promise” also features Shohreh Aghdashloo, Angela Sarafyan, Jean Reno, James Cromwell, Daniel Gimenez Cacho and Marwan Kenzari. It was produced by Eric Esrailian, Mike Medavoy and William Horberg.

“We are proud to add this prestigious film to our 2017 slate,” Open Road President Tom Ortenberg said in a statement. “An epic love story set against a turning point in world history, ‘The Promise’ features top notch performances and first class filmmaking and we are looking forward to sharing the movie with audiences across the country.”

The deal was negotiated on behalf of Open Road Films by Ortenberg, Elliott Kleinberg, the studio’s chief operating officer and general counsel, and SVP of acquisitions Lejo Pet.

WME and David Boyle handled the negotiations on behalf of Survival Pictures.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/the-wrap/article/Oscar-Isaac-Armenian-Genocide-Film-The-10786306.php

Avo Kaprealian’s film on Aleppo frontline wins Torino Fest top award

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avo-kaprealian-filmA film by Syrian-Armenian filmmaker Avo Kaprealian, “Houses Without Doors” was among the two movies to win the Best International Documentary award at the 34th Torino Film Festival in Italy, the fest’s official website said.

“Out of an impossible situation, he shows what is impossible to show – from the balcony of his family’s home he looks at the whole world. He makes us feel that Syrian and Armenian people are all humanity and makes us trust in the tools of cinema to help humanity to exist and resist in all times,” the jury said

The film portrays the changes in the life of an Armenian family on Aleppo’s frontline in Al Midan, an area that brought shelter to the persecuted Armenians 100 years ago and today to many displaced Syrians. From the balcony of his home, the director films with a small camera the changes in his neighborhood and his own family, interweaving his images with extracts from classical films to illustrate the parallels between the Armenian genocide and Syrians’ reality today.

Kaprealian was born in 1986 in Aleppo, who left his hometown to study theater at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus where he graduated in 2011. He took part in several film workshops organized by DocMed, Bidayyat for Audiovisual Arts and Screen Beirut. After returning to Aleppo, he began teaching at the Akkad Institute of Theatre and Arts.