Armenian Filmmaker Contributions Reach 60K

Armenian Filmmaker Contributions Reach 60K
Copyright © 2005 Ara Galoostian
Machiavelli Hangman
http://www.hangmanmovie.com



The Armenian movement to show the world its unity has been in
effect for a long time, however, not many films or filmmakers
have used the motion picture medium to communicate to the world.
Finally, there is a group of young artists, calling themselves
Armenian Filmmaker, headed by founder filmmaker
Shervin
Youssefian, who are working day and night to bring the
Armenian identity to the front page by of world news.

The Armenian community has for a long time rallied for the
world to recognize the Armenian genocide that carried out by
the Ottoman Empire in 1914. Every year on the 24th of April,
Armenians young and old come together with great big Armenian
flags to demonstrate against the Turkish government in hopes
that it will finally admit to the massacre of 1.5 million
Armenians at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Hollywood has focused mostly on the genocide of the Jewish
population and it seems not at all on the Armenian genocide
until just recently when Atom Egoyan made a film entitled
Ararat. Along with Ruben Mamoulyan and Kirk Krikorian, Egoyan
was just of a handful of Armenian artists involved in the
motion picture industry.

While the Armenian community gave some good reviews of Ararat,
many felt that it was not as strong a homage to the Armenian
culture and people because of its strong thematic subject matter
involving incest and drug abuse. Critics felt that it was too
much of an art house film with less appeal to the mass audiences. The Egoyan was also criticized for having chose a more Quentin
Tarantino/Pulp Fiction approach to tell a story about human
relationships and tragedies whereas he would have been better
off if he chose a more conventional narrative.

Armenian Filmmaker is a Los Angeles production group that
includes bright Armenian filmmakers who have come up with an
ingenious solution to break down the Hollywood barriers and
establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with. They are
rallying to the Armenian community in Los Angeles to come
together and fund
Machiavelli Hangman,
a 200,000 dollar budget motion picture one dollar at a time.
"If this works the way I think it's going to work, it's going
to revolutionize Hollywood. If the 200,000 Armenians come in
and give one dollar, this would be enough for us to complete
the film." Many genocide activists think although the community
has received some criticism about its lack of support for its
own people, this movement would finally put an end to any
questions about the unity of the Armenian community.

While there are also many skeptics of this movement, since its
launch date of April 2005, the website has received thousands
of hits and up to 60,000 dollars in contributions!



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Ara Galoostian prepares to get a masters degree in history and
he intends on traveling to Turkey for an exclusive story on
the last days of Talat Pasha. In the meantime, he explores the
challenges of telling the story of the Armenian community
through the activities of Armenian Filmmakers, who have come
together to produce a movie called, Machiavelli Hangman:
http://www.hangmanmovie.com