Trivia

This marks the first script for a feature film written by Mardik Martin in 34 years. His last known work was for Raging Bull (1980).

Martin Scorsese was quoted as saying: "Fatih Akin's The Cut (2014) is a genuine, hand-made epic, of the type that people just don't make anymore. In other words, a deeply personal response to a tragic historical episode, that has great intensity, beauty and sweeping grandeur. This picture is very precious to me, on many levels."

Director and screenwriter Fatih Akin is a German citizen of Turkish descent. Screenwriter Mardik Martin is an American citizen of Armenian descent. The Cut (2014) represents the first collaboration between an Armenian and a Turkish screenwriter on a feature film about the Armenian Genocide in film history.

Fatih Akin dedicated The Cut (2014) to the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink (September 15, 1954 - January 19, 2007) referring to him as his "teacher" in the film's end credits. Dink was a prominent member of the Armenian minority in Turkey and editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos. He was best known for advocating Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and human rights in Turkey. Dink was prosecuted by Turkish law 3 times for "denigrating Turkishness", and received numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists, before he was assassinated in January 2007 by Ogün Samast, a 17-year old Turkish nationalist, in Istanbul. This murder happened shortly after the premiere of the documentary Screamers (2006), in which Dink is interviewed about the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the case against him under Article 301. While Ogün Samast has been taken into custody, photographs of the assassin next to smiling Turkish police members, posing with the murderer in front of the Turkish flag, have since surfaced. The photos created a scandal in Turkey, prompting investigations and the removal from office of those involved. At the funeral of Hrant Dink 200.000 mourners marched in protest of his assassination, chanting "We are all Armenians" and "We are all Hrant Dink". Criticism of Article 301 became vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for repeal. The 2007-2008 academic year at the 'College of Europe' in Belgium was named in Dink's honour.

Fatih Akin on informing the audience about the historic Armenian Genocide through The Cut (2014): "I believe in that. Certain people may not need it. But other people need another rhetoric to understand this, I don't want to be preachy or act as a teacher but I want to create empathy. I made the film so that the Turkish audience could identify with an Armenian hero, which isn't easy. To do this you have to keep it simple and not challenge the audience with too much intellectual attitudes, but challenge them emotionally."