Arquivo / 49ª mostra

A political and personal libel on the part of director Atom Egoyan, the backdrop for this film is the controversial genocide of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1918. The Turkish government determined that some 2 million Armenians be deported to Syria and Mesopotamia, while carrying through a veritable ethnic scourge. Egoyan tells the story of celebrated Armenian director Edward Saroyan (played by singer Charles Aznavour), who decided to include in his film the great massacre of 1915 against the Armenians remembered as the Van Siege —with the defeat of Armenia and a toll of 1.5 million dead, whereupon all of the Lake Van region was annexed to Turkey. The Turkish government attempted, judicially, to prevent the world preview of Ararat at the Cannes Festival this year. To Egoyan, who was born in Cairo of Armenian parents, the film intends to settle accounts with history. “We are talking about a period never before presented on film”, he declared in Cannes. “I cannot condone with the attempts to minimize the gravity of the atrocities committed.”