1915

1915, 1917, 1922, 1933, 1949, 1961, 1975, 1994. Dates. Numbers. The act of naming: a date and nothing more. This dates sum up a number of 993,000,000 million people murdered, slaughtered, and killed, thrashed, beaten, slayed, executed. -For what? - We may ask – Why? – we all inquire with both, disgrace and sorrow. An all we overhear when we ask, when we think of it, when we try to swallow all of this, when we even consider asking, is silence, stillness, muteness. These dates, these marks of history, are inviting, welcoming us to speak. These inscriptions, in which lives, stories, deaths, lies, moments, times, instants, people, are hidden and where we storage every inch of history in dates, so that we may allow ourselves to dismiss them from our memories; something marks a date, and that 'something' is that which we attempt so hard to let go, but will haunt us every time we mark a mark again, it will take us back to it, with all the disgrace and humiliation that encompasses, every moment in the history of men. Because, every script comes or happens for the first and last time, every time.

Those dates are something that we do not yet really know how to identify, regulate, recognize, distinguish… we have not yet found a way to name them, and we circumspect them with a number, around a number, along a cipher, a code, an encryption. Nevertheless, that dates tell us that they should endure from here on unforgettable: an ineffaceable event in the shared archive of a universal calendar, a worldwide experience of time, a schedule for humanity's memoirs. But they also cry to us, telling and recalling us that we are unable to reconcile with history, that we cannot make amends with time, we are incapable of mooring those deaths, they tell us that they haunted by its own time, a time that is much less its own than impossibly inherited in the unsituatable experience of their moment. Shall we try to write what happened in those dates in past tense? Or is present tense more suitable to announce us what enclosures those marks? Is the past already gone, removed, erased, or is the past happening every time we consign ourselves to oblivion? Is present tense, is the word "now", a word that opens, unlocks, and answers; a tense as faltering as it is urgent, a tense that inaugurates the event of writing and marking, as once an unfulfillable anticipation of what is to come, what is ahead of or in the work, and an all too precipitate (therefore "improper") decision about the past as, to choose from now on, the "proper" tense?

This is what makes the film 1915 a way to resurrect old ghosts, merging past experiences with present ones. 1915 is a way to let a date happen, once and for all, as the way it should have happened long ago: it is way to allow 1915, as a date, as a calendar script, to escape its own fate. A way to let it happen. A way to assume a date. A way to assume the deaths. Assume that we allow those dates to happen. And it lets us know that when we forget, we kill the deaths again, we take the knives of our guilt and with remorse we stab them to their graves once and twice, repeatedly. Although I believe that knowing what happened and how it happened, isn't an emergency exit from guilt, at least it make us conscious that we are facing, and we will eternally face our impossibility to mourn, to grief them. And that even if we'd like to held one minute of silence for every victim of these crimes, we wouldn't have enough time, because we would have to be silent for 189 years. We have not enough time to mourn, we have not enough time to narrate each of the stories of the ones that were killed, we cannot even tell each name, write each name, know each name. 1915, as a movie, as a date, as an event, as a moment, as a genocide, externalizes us that there are gaps that we are unable, and we are powerless to fill; the gap—which makes as much as it breaks—is therefore where 1915, 1917, 1922, 1933, 1949, 1961, 1975, 1994 starts, and re-starts time and does it once more.

This is history that needs to be told. This is history that people need to know. This is more than a global event. This is a human event. This is more than politics. This is about the treatment of a whole people. You might think you don't like history. You might think you don't care about global events. Or you might not think about history or global events at all. But hopefully you care about people and people's lives. Whether you agree with the politics or not, you need to know the story. See the movie. It's filmed in a style that will appeal to everyone. It's revealing, it's emotional, it's action, it's drama, it's suspense, it's about perseverance, it's about people.

I'm thankful to the whole team of "1915 The Movie" film. The film examines, not only the land where 2 millions Armenians lived 100 years ago, but also the state of soul/mind of today's Armenians as well as the psychological influence of 100 years survival (the dramatic change). The film is breathtaking, which shows the complete essence of Armenian people the importance of facing your real truth, the fight for justice in our souls; even though, we sometimes deny it in order to not feel the pain of our nation. The BEST PART of this film is the deep passion, not only of the filmmaker, but of the whole team of 1915--this makes film beautiful with its psychologically tragic elements.Another BEST PART of the film is the element about the truly need of justice. Thank you for this important MOVING STORY FILM, THE 1915 THE MOVIE

I really enjoyed the movie. Definitely worth the watch! --- Rumor has it that some people wanted a harsher movie, but as an unbiased opinion, I believe this was perfect. It actually left me wanting to know more about the tragedy.

I also appreciated the theme of looking forward and overcoming. Never forget the past, but come together, and overcome. That really stood out to me.

Definitely a powerful movie. If you are considering watching this right now, don't expect to be playing on your phone. You will be glued to your seat and you won't be able to take your eyes off the screen!

This movie is pretty politicized but more importantly it will not satisfy Armenians who thirst for information about 1915. It will not satisfy those who don't know much about the issue or history. It will definitely not satisfy any Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Assyrians, or anyone else involved in the 30-years of historical events.

It's basically a movie trying to profit by confusing the issue about a dark chapter in history and monetizing this sacred issue for Armenians.

The way that the film turns a play into a sort of historical event with unprofessional actors and ridiculous scenarios is just upsetting and a disgusting way of looking at a very SERIOUS issue.

Sam Page is probably the worst actor in the movie. It's just sort of strange and amateurish the whole way it's put together. It tries to dramatize it by watering it down and politicize something that should be seriously studied and remembered. Also I was a bit disturbed and felt weirded out with the way the movie describes as "a crime was invented" like as if extermination or mass murder is something new or like colonialism or conquest or extermination never happened before. The crime cannot be forgotten just because someone wants it to be but it surely wasn't invented in 1915.

I mean the movie has a line like "maybe the play should have a happy endings" and "you are destroying the Armenian people." Like it's hammering you over the head with its obvious message by saying how naive the audience is.

Never Again.