Educational Media Reviews Online

The director, though born in Canada, describes himself as Armenian “heart and soul.” The theme of identity—defined by location, language, religion, and ethnicity—appears throughout this documentary. The director documents how Armenians view the massacres of the early 20th century, and how the memories continue to shape the Armenian world-view. He intended that this documentary help the victims to attain peace, encourage Turkey to acknowledge the genocide and thereby allow for the possibility of reconciliation, and free future generations from carrying on the duty of remembrance.

To show how Armenians still feel as a result of these events, the director provides interviews with survivors of the deportations and their descendents; photographs; and images from a Hollywood film from 1919 depicting the massacres. The filming took place in Armenia, as the director was denied admission to Turkey and Syria, countries through which many Armenians fled.

In addition to showing how displaced many people of Armenian heritage still feel, the film also asks the question: why, knowing that the massacres were occurring, did no one stop it? Tying it to other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries, the filmmakers try to understand how to prevent such events from happening in the future.

The film and sound quality are good. The narration is in English; the dialog in Armenian and French with white English subtitles.

Recommended for libraries collecting in areas of holocaust and genocide studies, or Armenian or Turkish history.