Taglines: 100 years ofter the Armenian Genocide.
Exactly a century after the Armenian Genocide committed in Ottoman Turkey, a mysterious director (Simon Abkarian) is staging a play at the Los Angeles Theatre to honor the victims of that tragedy. Because of the controversial theme of the performance, protesters surround the theater and series of strange accidents spread panic among his producer (Jim Piddock) and actors (Angela Sarafyan, Sam Page, Nikolai Kinski), it appears that the director’s mission is profoundly dangerous, and the ghosts of the past are everywhere.
The film explores the theme of denial, referring not only to the 100-year denial of the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey, but also individual denial, which is observed in all characters of the movie.
1915 is a psychological thriller film co-written and directed by Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian. It is produced by Hovannisian and Mouhibian with Terry Leonard, and stars Simon Abkarian, Angela Sarafyan, Samuel Page, and Nikolai Kinski. 1915 follows a mysterious theater director in present day Los Angeles as he tries to bring the ghosts of a forgotten genocide back to life. The film refers to the Armenian Genocide, which is denied by the Turkish government to this day.
Director’s Message
In 1915, under the cover of a world war, millions of Armenians were quietly taken out of their homes and marched to their deaths in the deserts of Ottoman Turkey. Their towns and villages were burned to the ground. Their churches were dismantled, too; the crime was to be denied forever.
It was a crime so new, it did not even have a name. Those who escaped 1915 tried to find new lives across the world. Many survivors, like our great-grandparents, never spoke of what they had seen. But some nights, we would hear them crying and screaming in their sleep.
In April 2015, millions of Armenians across the world commemorated the 100th anniversary of those nightmares—what historians now call the Armenian Genocide—the first genocide of modern history and the blueprint of the genocides that followed: the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, the Sudan. They marched in commemoration but also in protest against the silence, indifference, and ongoing denial that have fueled an entire century of genocide.
Our movie takes place one hundred years after 1915, on the other side of the world. It is about denial: what happens when the past is ignored; what happens when it is confronted. It tells the story of a man who is on a mission to bring the unrecognized ghosts of 1915 back to life. With the centennial of the Armenian Genocide upon us, we are ready to face the past together.
Alec Mouhibian, co-writer / director
1915
Directed by: Garin Hovannisian, Alec Mouhibian
Starring: Simon Abkarian, Angela Sarafyan, Samuel Page, Nikolai Kinski, Debra Christofferson, Courtney Halverson, Sunny Suljic
Screenplay by: Garin Hovannisian, Alec Mouhibian
Production Design by: Michael Fitzgerald
Cinematography by: Leigh Lisbão Underwood
Film Editing by: Dan Dobi, Paul Forte
Costume Design by: Lauren Oppelt
Art Direction by: Aidan FioRito
Music by: Serj Tankian
Studio: Bloodvine Media
Release Date: April 17, 2015 (Los Angeles, California), Apdil 22, 2015 (New York City, New York)
Visits: 59
