New Documentary On Armenian Genocide

[Gavur]

Armenian Genocide

http://www.azg.am/?lang=EN&num=2005102804

Film director Tigran Khzmalian presented his new "Armin Wegner: Photographer of the Genocide" documentary at the hall of Internews NGO. The film tells about the life of great photographer who shot the events of the Armenian Genocide creating an invaluable historic archive. Wegner is one of those unique documentalists whose photos make up more than 90 percent of photos on Genocide. The role of the great armenophil in the Armenian tragedy is not fully revealed though his body rests at Tsitsernakaberd. Wegner wrote different letters to country leaders during his lifetime telling about the massacre of Armenians and heinous events in Western Armenia. A letter of 1919 addressed to US president Wegner presented the events urging: "Mr. President save the honor of Europe... That would be recognition of all our sins..." The film was rather touching with its smartly plotted scenario and unique frames from German, British and American archives.

"We had to shoot at least two films at "Yerevan" studio this year; one about the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the other on the 60th anniversary of victory in world war director. "Armin Wegner" that you saw today can be considered the first documentary and the second one will sure come even if I will have to make it alone. I am bewildered that I have to do the job of the state and film studios alone. My work is more ideology than art, and I think that is the task of the state to promote its ideology. This documentary should have been shown in the US when the Congress were discussing genocide resolution, it should have been presented to the European Commission when they were wonder to open or not talks with Turkey," the film director said. Beside Khzmalian was also concerned with the fact that materials on Armenian Genocide simply lie idle in different Ra Foreign Ministry, Genocide Museum, archives of film studios and private collections without attracting anybody's attention even on these days of the 90th anniversary. "Is this how we are going to bring the Genocide to international recognition?" Khzmalian asks.

The filmmaker thanked the family that sponsored in creating "Armin Wegner: Photographer of the Genocide."

By Susan Margarian

[imported_benjaminuk]

I wonder who is Armin Wegner. I want to watch this film. But so films can't be sold in Turkey.

[Gavur]

Short biography here

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/wegnerbio.html

Some of the photos he took is here

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/photo_wegner.html

[Gavur]

And Photos here

http://www.teachgenocide.org/files/DocsMaps/Armin%20T%20Wegner%20Photos.pdf

[Gavur]

PBS to Air New Documentary on Armenian Genocide

NEW YORK--A new documentary called [The Armenian Genocide] is the complete story of the first genocide of the 20th century--when over a million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I. This unprecedented and powerful one-hour documentary, scheduled to air April 17 at 10PM on PBS, (check local listings for possible changes) was written, directed, and produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats Productions, in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Featuring interviews with leading experts in the field such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and New York Times best-selling author, Peter Balakian, this film features never-before-seen historical footage of the events and key players of one of the greatest untold stories of the 20th century. The Armenian genocide is narrated by Julianna Margulies and includes historical narrations by Ed Harris, Natalie Portman, Laura Linney, and Orlando Bloom.

"What the word 'Genocide' connotes is a systematic campaign of destruction. If you simply call the horrors of 1915 'crimes against humanity' or 'atrocities,' it doesn't fully convey just how methodical this campaign of slaughter and deportation really was, and I think that's why historians look at the record and they really can come to no other conclusion but that this word, Genocide, applies to this methodical campaign of destruction," says Samantha Power.

Filmed in the US, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, and Syria, the program features discussions with Kurdish and Turkish citizens in modern-day Turkey who speak openly about the stories told to them by their parents and grandparents.

To this day, Turkey denies that the Genocide occurred and steadfastly maintains this position. The film includes testimony by former Turkish Diplomat Gunduz Aktan to US lawmakers in the year 2000, where he explains the official Turkish position on the issue. "The Turkish people firmly believe that what happened to the Armenian people was not Genocide," Aktan says.

"As Turkey seeks to join the European Union, 90 years later, this film can give people a much better understanding of why this issue is such an important and current part of the international conversation about Turkey's role in the world today," said Goldberg.

Two Cats Productions is a documentary production company in New York City led by Andrew Goldberg. His television credits include PBS, ABC News, E!, CNN, and countless others. In addition, he produced The Armenians, A Story of Survival, which aired on PBS stations nationally in 2002 and was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle.

© 2005 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved.
ASBAREZ provides this news service for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets.
URL:www.asbarez.com

[Hovik]

NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

AZG Armenian Daily #003
12/01/2006

New York, NY (January, 2006) -- The Armenian Genocide is the complete
story of the first Genocide of the 20th century - when over a million
Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I.

This unprecedented and powerful one-hour documentary, scheduled to air
April 17th at 10pm on PBS, (check local listings for possible changes)
was written, directed and produced by Emmy Award-winning producer
Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats Productions, in association with Oregon
Public Broadcasting.

Featuring interviews with the leading experts in the field such
as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and New York
Times best-selling author, Peter Balakian, this film features
never-before-seen historical footage of the events and key players of
one of the greatest untold stories of the 20th century. The Armenian
Genocide is narrated by Juliana Margulies and includes historical
narrations by Ed Harris, Natalie Portman, Laura Linney and Orlando
Bloom, among others. "What the word 'Genocide' connotes is a systematic
campaign of destruction. If you simply call the horrors of 1915
'crimes against humanity' or 'atrocities,' it doesn't fully convey
just how methodical this campaign of slaughter and deportation really
was, and I think that's why historians look at the record and they
really can come to no other conclusion but that this word, Genocide,
applies to this methodical campaign of destruction," says Samantha
Power. Filmed in the US, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey and Syria,
the program features discussions with Kurdish and Turkish citizens
in modern-day Turkey who speak openly about the stories told to them
by their parents and grandparents. To this day, Turkey denies the
Genocide occurred and maintains this position steadfastly. The film
includes testimony by former Turkish Diplomat Gunduz Aktan to US
lawmakers in the year 2000, where he explains the official Turkish
position on the issue. "The Turkish people firmly believe that what
happened to the Armenian people was not Genocide," Aktan says. "As
Turkey seeks to join the European Union, 90 years later, this film
can give people a much better understanding of why this issue is such
an important and current part of the international conversation about
Turkey's role in the world today," said Goldberg.

[Perdikaraki]

Thank God

Thank God someone is finally doing something to tell the world about the genocides. Does anyone know if a video of the program will be for sale? I'll be out the country and unable to watch it.

[Tongue]

more info on the PBS documentary

Premieres on PBS, April 17, 2006 at 10pm

New York, NY (January, 2006) -- The Armenian Genocide is the complete story of the first Genocide of the 20th century when over a million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I. This unprecedented and powerful one-hour documentary, scheduled to air April 17th on PBS, was written, directed and produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats Productions, in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Featuring interviews with the leading experts in the field such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power and New York Times best-selling author, Peter Balakian, this film features never-before-seen historical footage of the events and key players of one of the greatest untold stories of the 20th century. The Armenian Genocide is narrated by Julianna Margulies and includes historical narrations by Ed Harris, Natalie Portman, Laura Linney and Orlando Bloom, among others.



What the word Genocide connotes is a systematic campaign of destruction. If you simply call the horrors of 1915 crimes against humanity or atrocities, it doesnt fully convey just how methodical this campaign of slaughter and deportation really was, and I think thats why historians look at the record and they really can come to no other conclusion but that this word, Genocide, applies to this methodical campaign of destruction, says Samantha Power.


Filmed in the US, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey and Syria, the program features discussions with Kurdish and Turkish citizens in modern-day Turkey who speak openly about the stories told to them by their parents and grandparents.



To this day, Turkey denies the Genocide occurred and maintains this position steadfastly. The film includes testimony by former Turkish Diplomat Gunduz Aktan to US lawmakers in the year 2000, where he explains the official Turkish position on the issue. The Turkish people firmly believe that what happened to the Armenian people was not Genocide, Aktan says.


As Turkey seeks to join the European Union, 90 years later, this film can give people a much better understanding of why this issue is such an important and current part of the international conversation about Turkey's role in the world today, said Goldberg.



~Two Cats Productions is a documentary production company in New York City led by Andrew Goldberg. His television credits include PBS, ABC News, E!, CNN, and countless others. In addition to documentaries, he has also written and produced commercials for such companies as Bell South, Sephora/Louis Vuitton, AT&T and PetSmart. Goldberg and Two Cats recent documentary productions include, A Yiddish World Remembered for PBS which won an Emmy in 2002, and The Armenians, A Story of Survival, which aired on PBS stations nationally in 2002 and was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle.

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is a major provider of programs for the PBS national primetime schedule and American Public Television (APT), producing a variety of freestanding documentary specials and series. OPB is also a statewide network of community-supported learning resources, including OPB Television, an affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and OPB Radio, presenting local news coverage and the programs of National Public Radio (NPR), American Public Media (APM) and Public Radio International (PRI). The OPB Web site is opb.org.

Major Underwriters: John and Judy Bedrosian, The Lincy Foundation, The Avanessians Family Foundation, and The Manoogian-Simone Foundation.



Photos for The Armenian Genocide are available online at www.promotion.opb.org"

[Gavur]

Commentary By Harut Sassounian

Commentary
Genocide Documentary: Rare Footage,
Great Interviews, Some Shortcomings

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

A new one-hour documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," will be broadcast on
PBS TV stations nationwide on April 17. It is written, directed and
produced by Emmy Award winning producer Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats
Productions, in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting. The narration
is done in a flat and impassive voice by actress Julianna Margulies.
In recent years, Goldberg has produced three other Armenian
documentaries, including "The Armenian Americans," "The Armenians, A Story
of Survival," and "Images of the Armenian Spirit." While these previous
documentaries contain some background material on the Armenian Genocide,
his latest work deals exclusively with this critical issue.
"The Armenian Genocide" features interviews with Elizabeth Frierson of
Princeton University; Pulitzer-winning author Samantha Power; Dr. Fikret
Adanir of the Ruhr Univ. (Germany); Dr. Taner Akcam of the Univ. of
Minnesota; Dr. Halil Berktay of Sabanci University (Turkey); Dr. Fatma Muge
Gocek of the Univ. of Michigan; Dr. Israel Charny, the Vice President of
International Association of Genocide Scholars (Jerusalem); Dr. Tessa
Hofmann (Germany); New York Times best-selling author, Peter Balakian; Dr.
Vahakn Dadrian of the Zoryan Institute; Ara Sarafian of the Gomidas
Institute (UK); and Prof. Ron Suny of the Univ. of Chicago.
The program also includes recollections by Kurds and Turks, living in
present-day Turkey, who recount the stories they had heard from their
parents and grandparents about the mass killings of the Armenians.
The documentary features rare footage of the critical events and major
figures of that period. It is filmed in the US, France, Germany, Belgium,
Turkey and Syria.
The documentary provides a short overview of Armenian history and an
in-depth presentation of developments surrounding the Armenian Genocide. It
mentions prominently the Hamidian Massacres of 1894-96, during which the
Ottoman government killed more than 200,000 Armenians. This was a prelude
to subsequent mass killings leading to the Armenian Genocide. Unfortunately
the documentary makes no mention of the 1909 Adana Massacre that resulted
in 30,000 Armenian deaths!
The 1894-96 and 1909 mass killings debunk the misrepresentations of
Turkish revisionists who use the much-abused pretext that the Armenians
were killed in 1915 because they rebelled against the Ottoman Empire and
joined the invading Russian troops during World War I. There were no wars
whatsoever in the 1890's and 1909, and yet, Armenians were massacred by the
tens of thousands. The Ottomans massacred their Armenian subjects from time
to time, independently of wars with external powers!
The documentary points out that after the battle of Sarikamis in December
1914, as the Russian Army advanced on Turkey, its ranks included a small
contingent of Turkish-Armenian volunteers who had defected to the Russian
side. It directly links the Turkish decision to disarm all Armenian
soldiers in the Ottoman Army, and indirectly links the subsequent genocide
of 1.5 million Armenians, to the pretext that a small contingent of Turkish
Armenians joined the Russian Army. Such a linkage may mislead some viewers
into thinking that a genocide was actually committed against an entire
nation in retaliation for the "disloyalty" of a few Armenian defectors. The
documentary makers may have gone somewhat overboard in this segment in
trying to appear "fair and balanced."
If the small number of Turkish Armenian soldiers who had defected to the
Russian side were perceived as a threat by the Ottomans, why did they
deport and kill hundreds of thousands of completely innocent young Armenian
children and elderly women from territories utterly disconnected from the
theater of war? The only valid explanation is that the Turks intended all
along to eradicate the entire Armenian nation from its historical homeland.
They exploited the war conditions and the actions of the Armenian
volunteers as a cover for their dastardly act. Furthermore, if joining the
enemy was the real reason for committing genocide, when Jews and Kurds
fought on the side of the British and Russian armies respectively, against
the Ottoman Empire, why were these minorities not rounded up and killed off
en masse?
On the other hand, the documentary does an admirable job of presenting
the views of prominent Turkish, Jewish, European, American and Armenian
scholars who expose the true facts of the Armenian Genocide and the
subsequent Turkish denials. Here are excerpts from some of their
interviews:
Prof. Halil Berktay related how, after giving an interview to a Turkish
newspaper confirming the facts of the Armenian Genocide, he came under
attack from fellow Turks: "It was as if I was yelling very loudly: 'The
emperor has no clothes.' They started yelling: 'Traitor. Here is this
traitor in our midst. Here is this person who is aiding and abetting the
enemy. He should be instantaneously fired from his university. There must
be punishment for him.' Not only, did they organize hate mail and obscenity
mail and death threat campaigns, I became this rare animal -- a Turkish
historian inside Turkey that has spoken up."
Dr. Israel Charny, the Vice President of the International Association of
Genocide Scholars, is shown as saying: "Imagine for a moment, the history
books of the Western world being printed without having the story of World
War I in there. Here is a significant country in our world, spending an
enormous amount of its money, of its resources, on one subject! 'Don't you
mention the Armenian Genocide!' And that's what their Ambassadors, and
their designated representatives, including in academia, are busy doing all
around the world. And the story gets dirtier. I can tell you, anybody can
tell you, of conference after conference, book after book, efforts to
produce a TV program, a movie about the Armenian Genocide, where the
Turkish government has intervened at every conceivable level."
Probably out of a misguided sense of providing balance, the documentary
makers also included highly offensive statements by two infamous Turkish
denialists (Gunduz Aktan, a former diplomat, and Yusuf Halacoglu, the head
of the Turkish Historical Society). They and other Turkish citizens are
shown refuting the facts of the Armenian Genocide. It is noteworthy that
those who produce documentaries on the Jewish Holocaust never include
denialist statements by neo-Nazis, just to appear "fair and balanced!"
This documentary, despite some of its shortcomings, would contribute
greatly to the education of the American public about the Armenian Genocide
and would attract the expected hostile reaction from Turkish denialists and
their non-Turkish cronies.

[Soorp Asdvadz]

It's about time...America needs to realize that this actually happened...If anyone recalls, the American ambassador to Turkey during 1915...Henry Morgenthau...The evidence is right in front of the Americans, but of course, we cannot lose our ally...Turkey