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I feel responsible for this dark chapter in Turkish history: Fatih A

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  • I feel responsible for this dark chapter in Turkish history: Fatih A

    Hindustan Times, India
    Sept 4 2014


    I feel responsible for this dark chapter in Turkish history: Fatih
    Akin on The Cut

    Gautaman Bhaskaran,
    Hindustan Times Venice, September 04, 2014


    Moviemaker Fatih Akin, born to Turkish parents, lives in Germany. His
    latest work, The Cut, just screened at the 71st edition of the Venice
    International Film Festival, which is now on. The final part of a
    trilogy, called Love, Death and the Devil, The Cut tackles the 1915
    Armenian genocide that took place in the Ottoman Empire and in which
    1.5 million men, women and children died.

    Akin's hero in The Cut is Nazaret, played by that brilliant
    French-Algerian actor, Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), who is separated from
    his wife and two twin daughters and forced into back-breaking labour.
    Years later, when World War I ends, Nazaret, travels from country to
    country, continent to continent trying to find his lost family. His
    journey takes him to Germany, Cuba, Malta and the US.

    Moviemaker Fatih Akin, born to Turkish parents, lives in Germany. His
    latest work, The Cut, just screened at the 71st edition of the Venice
    International Film Festival, which is now on. The final part of a
    trilogy, called Love, Death and the Devil, The Cut tackles the 1915
    Armenian genocide that took place in the Ottoman Empire and in which
    1.5 million men, women and children died.

    Akin's hero in The Cut is Nazaret, played by that brilliant
    French-Algerian actor, Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), who is separated from
    his wife and two twin daughters and forced into back-breaking labour.
    Years later, when World War I ends, Nazaret, travels from country to
    country, continent to continent trying to find his lost family. His
    journey takes him to Germany, Cuba, Malta and the US.

    The Cut is a very personal film for Akin, because "I feel responsible
    for this dark chapter in Turkish history. Mind you the genocide
    happened with Germany witnessing it. I am Turkish and I now live in
    Germany, and these make me in some way responsible for the terrible
    episode."

    What really disturbed Akin for many, many years was that nothing was
    spoken about the genocide, nothing written, and people, including his
    family, lived as if nothing ever happened in 1915. "Others may or may
    not agree with me - and this includes my own father -- but I call it
    genocide. The greatest challenge for me, therefore, was to try and
    make a movie that will convince my father. So The Cut is very personal
    for me," Akin avers.

    Yes, but what about the young people in Turkey. Do they admit that it
    was indeed a genocide? Do they at all care? "I think they do. A civil
    movement began in 2007 following the murder of the Armenian
    journalist, Hrant Dink, by a teenage Turkish nationalist, and a lot of
    young people are part of this movement. They stage plays, write
    articles, organise debates and discussions - all in to order to set
    right a wrong. All this is pushing Ankara to agree that there was a
    massacre of Armenians. My film can be seen as part of this movement,
    although I am not a part of it. I have not spearheaded it in any sort
    of way."

    Is there regret, even vague regret in Turkey? Akin says that there is
    no regret - as of now - but there is reflection. "Everything begins
    with reflection... This is human psychology. If there is a trauma,
    reflection is the first step towards reconciliation and admittance and
    solution."

    Akin adds, "We are a result of our past. We have to put our past in
    order. Otherwise there will not be any peace in the present. This is
    why there is so much of problem in the Middle East."

    For Akin, The Cut is not only about trying to use cinema as one step
    towards helping people realise the horrendous crimes they could have
    committed, but also a "personal journey" through the kind of movies he
    loved, Westerns especially, and the directors he has always admired.
    The work of Elia Kazan's America, America, that of Sergio Leone (the
    way he framed his shots) and those of Martin Scorsese have deeply
    influenced his craft. "I wrote The Cut with Mardik Martin, who also
    penned Scorsese's Mean Street and the first draft of Raging Bull.
    Martin is an Armenian."

    Akin researched for almost seven years for The Cut and found the
    diaries of many Armenians who migrated to Havana in the early 1920s,
    and the diaries contained elaborate details about death camps and
    death marches. Armenian women and children were forced to walk without
    food and water to the Syrian desert, and most of them died. Men were
    conscripted into the army or had to do build roads with very little
    nourishment.

    http://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/worldcinema/i-feel-responsible-for-this-dark-chapter-in-turkish-history-fatih-akin-on-the-cut/article1-1259862.aspx


    From: Baghdasarian
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