New Picture from Italy
Masseria delle allodole, La:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0854672/
As of this post, I understand that its title is "The Lark Farm." There is information about the story on the film's message board.
INTERVIEW - Armenian killings film not anti-Turkish - directors
By Reuters
Thursday February 15, 02:45 AM
By Madeline Chambers
BERLIN (Reuters) - A film depicting the tragedy of a rich family almost wiped out in the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 is not meant to be anti-Turkish, the directors said on Wednesday.
Italy's Taviani brothers say "The Lark Farm", featuring at the Berlin film festival, has a broad message about the human catastrophe of modern conflict.
Sparing little detail, the drama shows Ottoman Turks decapitating, castrating and dismembering the men of the Armenian family in front of their wives and children, who are themselves sent on a punishing forced march towards the desert.
"This movie is not against Turks," director Paolo Taviani told Reuters in an interview, pointing out a Turkish man is instrumental in saving some of the family's children.
"It is not the Turks who kill -- it is the Young Turks -- a political movement. It is exactly the same as what happened in Italy with the Fascists and in Germany under Nazism."
At the end of the press screening, the audience sat in stunned silence.
Turkey, in accession talks with the European Union, denies claims by Armenia and other countries that 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic genocide at Turkish hands.
It argues large numbers of Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks perished during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. To Ankara's dismay, several foreign parliaments have passed laws recognising the massacres as genocide.
Last month Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink, who espoused reconciliation between the two peoples, was killed by a 17-year-old ultra-nationalist. Like dozens of intellectuals, Dink had been prosecuted for his views on the killings.
NO RESPONSE FROM ANKARA
Ahead of the film's public release, the Taviani brothers said they were unaware of any adverse reaction from Turkey. Berlin's Turkish embassy said it had received no response to the film from Ankara.
Although a love story between an Armenian and Turk is a major part of the film and some Ottoman soldiers are portrayed as being reluctant to carry out orders to kill their friends, the focus is firmly on the suffering of the Armenian family.
"We wanted to comment on current events like Kosovo, and Rwanda," said Paolo Taviani's brother Vittorio.
"We thought we should look at one of the most horrifying tragedies of mankind because there is nothing worse than a war between people who know each other well."
The brothers say they are sure Turkey should join the EU.
"(But) we are convinced ... of the necessity that it publicly recognises the historical truth of the Armenian tragedy, in the same way as Germany and Italy have come to terms with their criminal past," they said in a statement.
Actress Arsinee Khanjian, who plays a major character in "The Lark Farm", says Turkey still has a way to go.
"Turkey must change its approach to the Armenian genocide but it also has big human rights problems with many other minorities," the actress of Armenian descent told Reuters.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070214/137/6c4i9.html
"Why Conceal the Armenian Tragedy?"
The film "The Lark Farm" promises to be among the more controversial at this year's Berlin Film Festival. SPIEGEL spoke with the film's directors about the Armenian tragedy and how slaughtering the innocent is part of human history.
SPIEGEL: You don't hold back in showing the atrocities committed on the Armenians. Aren't you concerned about shocking your audience?
Vittorio Taviani: Each scene was historically verified, even the most gruesome. We didn't want to hide anything. The slaughtering of the innocent is part of human history and, since the Greek tragedies, part of art. On Sundays our priests deliver sermons about infanticide in Bethlehem. It remains nothing but a word when it is said in church. It is the cinema's job to show it -- not just to emphasize dramatic camera angles, but to quietly show it.
Paolo Taviani: The film isn't just about Turkey in 1915, but also about the present. There have been similar scenes in the Balkans, in Rwanda and in Sudan. We Italians murdered, and the Germans murdered. The horror can happen any time and any place. Why conceal the Armenian tragedy?
SPIEGEL: The Armenian genocide remains a blind spot in Turkey's national identity. Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish journalist, was murdered only recently. Isn't there a concern that the film could trigger violent reactions among Turkish nationalists, similar to the reactions to the Danish cartoons?
Vittorio Taviani: We didn't think about that when we made the film.
Paolo Taviani: We aren't calling it genocide. Whether it was genocide or not is for the historians to decide. We call it a tragedy. This is not a documentary film. We have no intention of supporting any theories with our films. We relate one page from the history books through the fates of our characters. The truth is always only its own truth. At this point in our lives, we wanted to recount a collective experience through a series of personal fates, each of them unique and distressing in its own right. After all, we tell the story of the impossible love between a young Turk and an Armenian woman. The film ends with a trial in which Youssuf, the Turkish soldier, testifies about the crimes. It is not a film against Turkey. On the contrary, it is a film for everyone in Turkey who confronts history. After all, 100,000 people demonstrated in Istanbul against the murder of Hrant Dink. I am convinced that the film will be shown in Turkish schools within a few years.
SPIEGEL: Why did you cast a German actor Moritz Bleibtreu in the role of the good Turk?
Vittorio Taviani: The director is entitled to select the faces to go with his fantasies irrespective of nationality. Bleibtreu is remarkable. The cinema is always illusion. Even (Italian director Luchino) Visconti cast an American, Burt Lancaster, in his film "Gattopardo."
Paolo Taviani: Besides, we have cast a well-known actor of Turkish heritage, Tchéky Karyo, in the film. Karyo told us that after this film, he knew that he hadn't become an actor for nothing.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,466444,00.html