Efforts by famed director-producer Rouben Mamoulian to produce a feature film based on “Forty Days of Musa Dagh” and Turkish and State Department collusion to halt that production will be the focus of a presentation by Los Angeles-based filmmakers Edwin Avaness and Serj Minassians during the “Film and Arts” panel at the ANCA Grassroots Conference to take place Thanksgiving Weekend, Asbarez reports.
Through the presentation and discussion of their new film “Epic Denied,” Avaness and Minassians will shed light on Turkish and State Department collusion to force the hand of movie giant MGM to halt plans to produce the Franz Werfel epic novel for the theaters.
“Having Edwin and Serj on the panel will shed light on an important episode in our Armenian-American reality and highlight the lengths that Turkey and the State Department went to in perpetuating Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide,” said Ara Khachatourian, chairman of the ANCA Grassroots organizing committee.
“This topic is so current as the Armenian-American community has mounted a campaign to stop another of Turkey’s efforts to ‘gag’ the truth by forcing the White House to not allow the display of the Armenian Genocide ‘Orphan Rug’ at the Smithsonian,” added Khachatourian.
