The director of The Promise says modern day events repeated the horrors of his film on the Armenian Genocide.
Filmmaker Terry George, sadly, knows something about genocide.
I needed to open that up.
So I introduced Christians character, Chris Myers, for a couple of reasons.
He sees the death march and the villages being destroyed.
We were able to introduce the retreat to Musa Dagh and then the French rescue at the end.
Those were key events that I wanted to get into the film.
We were literally filming scenes that we were watching on television, he recalled solemnly.
People were drowning in the Mediterranean when were filming people drowning.
Dont be demonizing these people now who are fleeing for their lives with no choice.
Theres just a volume of documentation, research, historical commentary on this, he explained.
I went to Armenia and into Istanbul.
We had several consultants.
I knew the documentation.
I went over all the books there are huge books on it and plunged myself into that.
The one thing youve got to get right is the historical events.
Well, if it didnt happen heres the two events that I compressed to make it happen.
Thats the relevance of it, he said with a shake of his head.
And I hope that gets across.
The Promiseis out in theaters now.
