Day by day

Aghet - Ein Völkermord (Aghet: 1915, le génocide arménien)

Germany // 2010 // Couleur // 83'
German with English and French subtitles

Aghet, a word that in Armenian means catastrophe – but, above all, the Armenian genocide. One and a half million men, women and children deported, massacred, exterminated and a nation wiped off the map of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918. Based on his encounters with the diaspora, on German and American diplomatic archival footage, and having unearthed testimonies of witnesses of that era – to whom German actors lend their voices – German documentary-maker Eric Friedler restitutes the terrible events of the Armenian tragedy in order to denounce the revisionists, especially the Turkish authorities, for whom the subject is still taboo. Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pahmuk was prosecuted for having raised the issue while Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was simply assassinated. At a moment when France has incurred Ankara’s wrath for penalizing revisionism of the Armenian genocide, Aghet gets to the heart of the matter.

Eric Friedler