DIRECTOR OF ‘1915’ ON GROWING UP WITH ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AS FAMILY HISTORY
89.3 KPCC
April 15 2015
by John Rabe
Turkey was on the defensive Wednesday, lashing out at both Pope Francis
and the European Union’s legislature for their descriptions of the
Ottoman-era killing of Armenians as genocide. Turkey’s prime minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said that the pontiff has joined “an evil front”
plotting against Turkey… Later Wednesday, the European Parliament
triggered more Turkish ire by passing a non-binding resolution to
commemorate “the centenary of the Armenian genocide.” In a quick
response, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the resolution was an
attempt to rewrite history and threatens to harm bilateral relations
between the EU and Turkey. — Associated Press, April 15, 2015
This month, most of the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide, in which the Turks killed an estimated 1.5
million Armenians. This weekend marks the opening of a new movie that
tells the story again, but through a production of a play staged at
the historic Los Angeles Theatre in downtown LA.
Alec Mouhibian and Garin Hovannisian’s “1915” opens this weekend in
Southern California and next weekend in New York, and Hovannisian
came to the Off-Ramp studio to talk with host John Rabe about the film.
(Filmmaker Garin Hovannisian at the Mohn Broadcast Center. Credit:
John Rabe)
How did you first learn of the genocide?
“I came from a very special family that was connected directly with the
Armenian genocide. My grandfather, Richard Hovannisian, who has taught
history at UCLA for the past 50 years, and who is one of the founding
scholars of Armenian studies in the United States, made it no option
for me not to know. The way he came to discover it from his own father,
who was a survivor, was very different. His father survived, escaped,
moved to the San Joaquin Valley, and the instinct of many people of
his generation was to forget, to overcome the past. But many nights,
Kaspar, my great-grandfather, could be heard screaming in his sleep.”
How did they describe the genocide to a child?
“There was this mythic land called Armenia, with a wonderful mountain
called Ararat, where the Bible says Noah’s arc landed, a land where
Christianity first proclaimed. But for some reason, that land didn’t
exist, that land was destroyed, it was a land of ruined churches,
it was a ghost land. And so the stories that my father would tell me
deep into the night always began with ‘there was this land called
Armenia.’ To me, it was the place of my dreams. It was the place
that, having been born in Los Angeles, growing up in Los Angeles,
we would return to.”
Tell us about “1915,” your movie.
“This movie follows a mysterious, intense theater director, who on
one day, April 24, 2015, which happens to be the 100th anniversary
of the Armenian genocide, believes that if he brings the right cast
together, and if he stages this play to perfection, he can actually
bring the ghosts of the Armenian genocide back to life. So in an age
when nobody believes in the theater anymore, this one theater director
is on the mission of his life.”
For much more from our interview with Garin Hovannisian, listen to
the audio interview near the top of the screen.
“1915” opens Friday in Hollywood, Glendale, Beverly Hills, Encino,
Pasadena, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Rancho Palos Verdes, and Whittier;
and April 25 at the Moscow Cinema in Yerevan, Armenia.