Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction

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source: Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction

We do not like to appeal with absolute concepts. We hold on to our everyday life, work, dissolve in daily worries. We respond to serious questions while running with cynicism, indifference and the attitude of "none of my business". But here is the movie. About something major. About the naive. Because the concepts of justice and humanity seem in our time to be naive. Two hours of immersion in a dark room in eternal questions. The documentary film tells about the Armenian Genocide, about history, about denial, about the short memory and cyclical nature of history, about justice, about how important and necessary it is for millions of people. Those people who are denied the right to acknowledge their tragedy, and the victims sew their wounds in genetic codes and pass on to their descendants. One victim is tragedy, millions are statistics. Wrestlers, activists, directors who, despite threats, go to the end, carry a high flag, do not bow their heads - they delight. You admire them, you want to follow them, they inspire you to raise your flag higher.

While the film description portrays it as a documentary about the Armenian Genocide, about 1/2 the film is about making the film "The Promise". The parts that are strictly about the Genocide are 5 star. However, I found the parts about filming the movie distracting and downright annoying.

Intent to Destroy" ~~ The sickening truth of official Turkish falsehood. Documentary Filmmaker Joe Berlinger meets with historians and scholars to discuss the Armenian Genocide. Viewed at the 14th Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan. The 2017 Yerevan film festival closed appropriately with a brutally frank exposition of the outrageous ongoing Turkish denial of the mass massacre=>Genocide of Armenians in the Imperial Ottoman Turkey of 1915 - 1916. The name of the film is "Intent to Destroy" by New York Jewish filmmaker Joe Berlinger. Mr. Berlinger took the stage to introduce the film and described himself as "a nice Jewish boy from New York" who has always identified with the Armenians "because of our shared genocide experience". The title of this detailed dissection of Turkish Genocide Denial is a direct reference to the wording of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide that officially defined genocide as a government acting with specific "Intent To Destroy" a people or race -- as was the deliberate premeditated policy of the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915 to ethnically cleanse Turkey of all its original Armenian inhabitants -- a people who were there from time immemorial, thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks from central Asia. This Denial documentary is embedded in a most intricate manner into a recent fiction film about the Genocide, 'The Promise" which was made in Spain in 2016, starring Hollywood actor Christian Bale of Batman fame and helmed by hard-hitting Irish director Terry George. Mr. Berliner's purpose, to pit the fictionalized account of the genocide itself against the grotesque International Turkish campaign to "enforce" denial of same -- like "No, this was not a Turkish government policy -- just some collateral damage in which many Muslims were also killed" ~~ Yeah, Yeah! To press home his point Berlinger includes testimony by numerous academic historians, many Armenian Professors at American Universities, and there is a most compelling sequence featuring Canadian Armenian film director Atom Egoyan, which is one of the pinnacles of the picture and more or less sums up the issues in a small number of eloquently emotional minutes. What makes the denial position even more stomach turning is the seemingly sincere testimony of a number of dedicated deniers, one an American Academician, Justin McCarthy. About the deniers says Berlinger: "I accept them at face value letting them voice their opinions. I think they have also been victims of the Turkish propaganda campaign for the last century. A lot of people don't believe it's Genocide (as officially defined by the U.N.) -- the denial campaign has been so effective in sowing doubt and delivering their narrative that these were just casualties of war.. ". Berlinger's tremendous opus, with copious historical documentation of the final days of the Ottoman Empire, leaves no doubt as to the sickening truth of official Turkish falsehood and will probably bring on a new wave of denial double-talk from Constantinople and efforts to have it suppressed through political pressure. Most sickening of all is the fact that the US Government, to this day, in order to protect its military interests in ever more and more autocratic Turkey under neo-Sultan Erdogan, continues to yield to Turkish political pressure by studiously avoiding the "G" word in reference to the uprooting of The Armenians from Turkish soil. Disgaceful Hypocisy at the highest levels. Other democratic governments like France and Germany have officially passed legislation naming the murderous dispersal of the Armenians from their homeland "with intent to Destroy" as Genocide much to the consternation of the present Ankara Regime

Joe Berlinger's film documentary was produced alongside" The Promise," as his film crew tagged along with the team of the big-budget motion picture released in 2017. Taken together, the two films offer a superb educational package for students to learn about the Armenian Genocide. The three-part structure of the film (death-denial-depiction) offers: (1) historical background on World War I, the Ottoman Empire, and the Armenian Genocide; (2) the phenomenon of what filmmaker Terry George refers to as "a dark, menacing force of denialist mentality" that has built up in over a century; and (3) the goals of the film artists in the making of "The Promise," which was filmed in Spain, Portugal, and Malta because location filming in Turkey was out of the question. The documentary includes interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors, scholars, journalists, and the actors and crew members of "The Promise." This is an all-encompassing film documentary that provides the historical background necessary to understand the original historical event, plus an incisive analysis of why the truth was suppressed for over a hundred years. This film documentary is best when watched in conjunction with viewing "The Promise." Highly recommended!

This is the research behind the historical drama presented in documentary form. It is very helpful in understanding the who's, why's and where's that were depicted in the film. A favourite of mine at the September 2016 festival. It includes many in depth moments with the film maker and many deeply personal moments (direct to camera) from the films actors of Armenian heritage and its Caucasian stars Christian Bale and James Cromwell portraying American witnesses to the actual events in 1915. Important viewing for us who want more information about the history of this troubled region and time. I expect it to part of a bonus material when "The Promise (2016)" is released on disc. I was at the 3rd screening at Hot Docs 2017 and unfortunately was unable to participate in a Q&A as the film makers had left. I would very much like people that saw a screening with a Q&A to post a review together with some details of the exchanges with the film makers.

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Intent to Destroy