The Cut, a film about the Armenian Genocide by German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, premierred in Paris on November 7, Jean Eckian reports from France.
The film will be screened in 120 cinemas in France on January 15, 2015, with dialogue dubbed in Armenian, Turkish and Arabic and with French subtitles.
On December 5 it will be screened in five cities of Turkey – Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya and Eskişehir.
Speaking to reporters after the premiere, the director said “the purpose of the film is to create an atmosphere in Turkey to speak openly about the Armenian Genocide.”
“The Cut” is the last in what the director calls his “Love, Death and the Devil” trilogy and focuses on the plight of Armenians who are uprooted from their villages and sent on death marches into the desert, conscripted into forced labor gangs or killed outright.
The main figure is Nazaret Manoogian, played by Tahar Rahim, an Armenian blacksmith who is separated from his wife and young twin daughters in the middle of the night by Turkish soldiers, who take him to a work camp, after which his town is cleared of Armenians.
He survives the forced labor in the desert and avoids having his throat slit when his would-be executioner takes pity and only pretends to kill him.
After Turkey’s defeat in the war, he begins a quest that takes him to Cuba and America in search of his missing daughters who have fled there, after their mother and the rest of their family were killed.
