Armenian Genocide
Overview
The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its peaceful Christian Armenian subjects from their historic homeland within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. As a result of the state-ordered and implemented campaign of genocide, the Ottoman Empire killed 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children, exiled the Armenian nation from its historic homeland, and destroyed and deported hundreds of thousands of its other Christian citizens.
The following may be found on Amazon and YouTube. Descriptions were taken from
Amazon, YouTube and other similar sources. The list is comprised of three sections:
Films/Documentaries, Media Reports/Interviews, and Armenian Genocide Relevant Video
Clips. Teaching guides and lesson plans of the films and documentaries can be found
through the Genocide Education Project and additional video material can be found at this
link.
The Promise
Empires fall, love survives. When Michael (Oscar Isaac), a brilliant medical student meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between Michael and Ana’s boyfriend Chris (Christian Bale), a famous American photojournalist dedicated to exposing political truth. As the Ottoman Empire crumbles into war-torn chaos, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to get their people to safety and survive themselves. The Promise is directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Terry George.
Crows of the Desert
Crows of the Desert – A Hero’s Journey through the Armenian Genocide, is a documentary based on the Memoirs of Levon Yotnakhparian. It is the incredible true story of one man’s brave struggle to not only stay alive, but to help save his fellow Armenian survivors from near extinction in the 20th Century’s first genocide.
The Lark Farm
As adapted from the roman by Antonia Arslan and co-directed by legendary Italian brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, The Lark Farm marks one of the few international features to tackle the Armenian genocide head-on. The story (with its thematic parallels, in the early scenes, to De Sica’s 1970 Garden of the Finzi-Continis) concerns the Avakian clan. An Armenian family living an affluent lifestyle and periodically shuttling back and forth between their two comfortable homes, the Avakians feel convinced that the rising tide of Turkish hostility on the horizon means little to them and will scarcely affect their day to day. Indeed, The Avakians ignore the warning signs, and set about preparing for a family reunion with the impending visit of two well-to-do sons – landowner Aram, who resides in Turkey, and Assadour, a physician living in Venice. Lo and behold, these illusions come crashing down when a Turkish military regiment crops up at the house, annihilates every male member of the family and forces the ladies to trek off into the Syrian desert, where they will be left to rot. Meanwhile, a handsome Turkish officer (Alessandro Preziosi) falls for Aram’s daughter and makes an aggressive attempt to deliver her and her family from certain death, even as the circumstances surrounding him attest to the astounding difficulty of this goal.
Architects of Denial
The documentary not only digs into the persecution of Armenians and other Christians in the Middle East, both past and present, but it also sheds light on those politicians who refuse to acknowledge an event scholars accept as a sad reality and historical fact.
Intent to Destroy
Filmmaker Joe Berlinger meets with historians and scholars to discuss the Armenian Genocide by exploring the tangled web of responsibility that has driven a century of denial by the Turkish government and its strategic allies.
Orphans of The Genocide
Orphans of the Genocide is an emotional visual journey through never-before-seen archival footage and discovered memoirs of orphans who lived through the last century’s first, fully documented and least recognized Armenian Genocide of 1915. The documentary follows Maurice Missak Kelechian whose research findings unveil the site of an Armenian orphanage located at the present day Antoura College near Beirut, Lebanon where 1,000 Armenian Genocide Orphans had lived and were forcefully converted and “Turkified” during W.W. I. In addition to the Antoura site, the documentary unveils numerous other orphanages where Armenian orphans were housed – and profiles one orphan girl who was adopted and later became one of Turkey’s high-profiled national icons as the daughter of Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey. The documentary traces the lives of many orphans who lived through the horrors of a war, losing parents and being separated from siblings and shipped to various countries.
Grandma’s Tattoos
Khardalian is the director and producer of the riveting documentary, that lifts the veil of thousands of forgotten women – survivors of the Armenian Genocide– who were forced into prostitution and tattooed to distinguish them from the locals.
The Cut
The film is Faith Akin’s epic drama about one man’s journey through the Ottoman Empire after surviving the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Deported from his home in Mardin, Nazareth moves onwards as a forced laborer. When he learns that his twin daughters may still be alive, his hope is revived and he travels to America, via Cuba, to find them. His search takes him from the Mesopotamian deserts and Havana, to the barren and desolate prairies of North Dakota. On this odyssey, he encounters a range of very different people: angelic and kind-hearted characters, but also the devil incarnate.
Ararat
From the Academy Award nominated director, Atom Egoyan, and featuring an all-star cast, Ararat is the acclaimed cinematic masterpiece about a tragic historical event, a country in denial, and a people yearning for the truth. For the estranged members of a contemporary family, the tangled relationships of their present are only complicated by their catastrophic past. And what begins as a search for clues becomes a determined quest for answers across a vast and ancient terrain of deception, denial, fact, and fears. This stunning and passionate motion picture explores the pursuit of identity through the intimate moments shared by lovers, families, enemies, and strangers.
My Mother’s Voice
Password: momsvoice
This is a story of a young girl orphaned in the Armenian genocide and how she found her way to America to marry a man she knew only from a photograph.
Journey To The Homeland
In this 30-minute film, Nora Hovsepian documents her long-awaited pilgrimage back to the land from where her grandparents were forced to flee in 1915. The film shows the remnants of an ancient and resilient Armenian culture after Ottoman Turkey attempted to destroy Western Armenia in the first Genocide of modern times. It is a labor of love which Hovsepian hopes will evoke a sense of longing and belonging in every Armenian who is able to share this life-changing experience. She is disseminating it now just before the Centennial to remind us all about what the Armenian people lost in the Armenian Genocide.
“The Handjian Story: A Road Less Traveled”
Kourken and Malvine Handjian were survivors of the first genocide of the 20th century – the Armenian Genocide. Over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman Turks – a crime that, to this day, modern Turkey refuses to acknowledge. Thankfully the United States congress did finally recognize this crime in 2019 and called it what it was – a genocide – long after the few remaining survivors were gone. Kourken and Malvine never did live to see the truth acknowledged by the country they called home – the United States of America – but because they survived – I am alive. They were my grandparents. I will continue to tell their story… This interview and filming was done by Mirelle Kaloustian. I edited down 5 hours of footage to create the chronological account of my grandparents early life. The documentary won awards at film festivals – and my grandmother was in attendance to see her story shared with audiences. I was honored to win an Emmy Award for my film score.
“Genocide: Worse Than War
Full-length documentary | PBS”
Worse Than War documents Goldhagen¹s travels, teachings, and interviews in nine countries around the world, bringing viewers on an unprecedented journey of insight and analysis. In a film that is highly cinematic and evocative throughout, he speaks with victims, perpetrators, witnesses, politicians, diplomats, historians, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists, all with the purpose of explaining and understanding the critical features of genocide and how to finally stop it. – Duration: 1:54:16 (Armenian Genocide portion begins at 1:00:05)