The American Hellenic Council Calls for a Boycott of ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant’

CULVER CITY, Calif.—The American Hellenic Council (AHC) recently released a statement, urging the Greek American community and all descendants of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide, to boycott the new Turkish-produced film The Ottoman Lieutenant. “The film is a blatant attempt to repudiate the upcoming movie, The Promise, and mislead impressionable youth into believing the Genocide was a ‘two-sided’ event,” reads a part of the statement.

A still image from the ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant’

Signed by AHC Executive Director Ioannis Fidanakis, the statement also calls for the public to join an AYF-initiated letter writing campaign to local theaters to educate them about the purpose of this film.

The statement can be read below.

***

Dear Supporter,

 

We, the American Hellenic Council (AHC), in solidarity with the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) Western United States, urge the Greek-American community, as well all descendants of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide, to jointly boycott the recently released film, The Ottoman Lieutenant.

The movie, which was produced by a Turkish production company, was released on March 10 and stars Michiel Huisman, Hera Hilmar, Josh Hartnett, and Ben Kingsley, is set in Ittihadist Turkey at the time of the Genocide. The film is a blatant attempt to repudiate the upcoming movie, The Promise, and mislead impressionable youth into believing the Genocide was a “two-sided” event.

Although we at the AHC, acknowledge that Ottoman Turks were affected by the state of war throughout the Empire, like all Ottoman citizens, their suffering cannot be equated with a systematic campaign of extermination, which befell the native Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian peoples of Eastern Thrace and Anatolia.

Therefore, we ask the Greek-American community to refrain from paying to watch this film in theaters or supporting it in any way. Those interested in joining an AYF-initiated letter writing campaign to local theaters to educate them about the purpose of this film should contact us at ioannis@americanhellenic.org.

 

Sincerely,

Ioannis Fidanakis
Executive Director
American Hellenic Council

Guest Contributor

Guest Contributor

Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles or press releases written and submitted by members of the community.

21 Comments

  1. Well done the American Hellenic Council. Solidarity for a common good is essential in struggle for justice.

  2. Not only I will boycott this film, full of lies, but I will also boycott any films where the actors of this film play in.

  3. I absolutely support this initiative- disgraced nation who cannot own up to their past and the atrocities they have carried out.

  4. I AS A GREEK HAVE TO SAY THIS FILM IS A disgrace IN 1913 697.000 greek pontians lived in pontus and more than 50% were killed till 1923 the exact number is 353.000 from kemals young turks

  5. Ioannis Fidanakis
    Executive Director
    American Hellenic Council

    Dear Mr. Fidanakis,

    Bravo, for exposing the Turkish propaganda film ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant,’made by the Turkish film producers and their company, for the American public!

    I sent you an E-mail concerning the film, ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant.’

    I would appreciate it very much if the Western AYF and your Greek organization would also send letters to the Regal Movie Theaters in Fresno, CA, that are showing the film, ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant.’

    Sincerely,

    John Chookasezian
    (559) 213-1909

  6. Two sided event? Who are they kidding? How about the thousands of innocent people, like my grandparents who didn’t even understand what was happening, why their men and mail children were being killed, why they were deported. All they had done was work hard, educate their children and have a comfortable life. No Sir, this was NOT A TWO SIDED EVENT! I boycott this film with all my being!

  7. I personally have met Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians who gave me eyes witness accounts of the Turkish implementation of genocide upon them.

  8. I am an Assyrian and you have my 100% support. Thank for exposing this dirty agenda. I will be sharing this with all my friends.

  9. this is very excellent. all the parties that were affected by the dirty deeds of these turkish butchers / Armenians, assyrians, greeks are finally coming together as one. this should continue from now on. the great French president, Charles de gaulle once said,”l’union fait la force” roughly translated it means, “unity is strength”.

  10. I am Armenian and a granddaughter of a Genocide Survivor. You have my total support. Bravo to you and American Hellenic Council.

  11. As an historian I deplore the distortion of the true history of the Near Eastern Holocaust. Around 3 million innocent people were murdered and the majority of survivors driven into exile. Homes, land and businesses were destroyed or stolen and long-standing cultures erased. Turkey went unpunished by the international community at the time. As a country it has since not only failed to acknowledge the truth but deliberately tried to bend facts, in a continuation of the Genocide – the stage of denial. No one should support this denial or any artefacts of it, such as this movie. I fully support your call to boycott this propaganda and hope that your campaign succeeds in persuading venues to not show it.

  12. It is very important to boycott films that are not based on truth. If even one misleading film is allowed to be seen without protest, then another will be produced and then another, until history is totally rewritten. Genocide is never a two sided argument. Shame on the producer, shame on the Turks.

  13. It is disgusting how the Turkish Government always manipulate history to their favor.The GENOCIDE and the atrocities against the Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians are facts that cannot be denied by anyone. We have to fight back this maniac, primitive, arrogant, overweening government which claims ownership from Krimaea to Cyprus and the Aegean sea, the least I can say. If it wouldn’t be so tragic you could take it as a joke. Boycotting this film will be a lesson to them.I hope you succeed in your efforts.

  14. A late friend of mine was the son of a Pontic Greek. Believe me when I say the stories of what they faced were as horrible as what the Armenians faced.

    I, for one, would love to see a movie adaptation of the wonderful book, “Not Even My Name,” by Thea Halo, which tells the story of the Greeks and her family’s escape to America.

    The Turkish government needs to own up to what happened and move on. Erdogan is already the laughing stock of Europe, so he really has nothing else to lose at this point, and by doing so, he might even restore a little credibility to himself.

    I hope this is one movie that earns 0 rotten tomatoes.

  15. The Turks killed Kurds too, particularly Alawis and Yezidis. Even today they are killing Kurds under the guise of eradicating the PKK. We know Turks are lying when they claim that Armenians were killed because they sided with Russia and were a security threat, because they targeted women and children who were unable to bear arms. The ridiculousness of Turkey’s lies are quite clear, no one believes the garbage they spew, only these brainwashed, vicious, mongols

  16. I have been to Turkey and have seen what they have done to the Greek nationals this past century. They are a disgrace even though they say we are friends of Greece. As a Christian I was told to put my cross under my sweater and not to wear my jacket that had my Church name on it. This is so called friends of Greece. The death march from Smyrna -the destruction of any mention of Greek and taking over of businesses and homes belonging to Greeks. The illegal possession of Cyprus. The final insult to all oppressed people the lying and changing of history the way it happened.

  17. BY DESIGN… BY SOFIA KONTOGEORGE KOSTOS

    PLEASE FIND MY SPECIAL MESSAGE TO MR. IOANNIS FIDANAKIS

    THANK YOU

    By design: people at large were not supposed to know about the deliberate extermination of the Christian populations––the Armenians, the Assyrians, and the Greeks that once lived in Asia Minor (now Turkey) for many centuries.

    By design: the terrible truths were withheld from us through a conspiracy of silence. Books that were written by U.S. officials were stolen from libraries; were not allowed to be reprinted; and were made unavailable in bookstores.

    It was only after the 75-year copyright laws were lifted, that some of the eyewitness books were reprinted.

    The U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, described the extermination policies in Turkey as “The Greatest Horror in History.” Please see: The American Red Cross Magazine, March 1918.

    After extensive research, each word of the archival news reports was replicated. My book & E-book, Before the Silence: Archival News Reports That Begs to be Remembered, contains more than 200 English language news reports from as far as Japan and Australia, between the years 1822 to 1926.

    Before the Silence, provides photographs, footnotes, commentaries by experts in their fields, cross-references to books and other news reports. These are but a few of the headlines you will find in the archival news reports:

    “WHOLESALE MASSACRES” “WHOLESALE DROWNINGS”
    “RACE MURDER” “ATROCITIES” “CARNAGE” “CATASTROPHE”
    “ORGANIZED PERSECUTIONS” “ORGANIZED BUTCHERY” “MURDEROUS ORGY” “MULTITUDINOUS CRIME” “DESTRUCTION” “OUTRAGES” “MURDER OF A NATION” “SLAUGHTERS” “UNSPEAKABLE TURK ATROCITIES”
    “GERMAN GUILT”
    “POOLS OF BLOOD MARK MASSACRE OF CHRISTIANS”
    “HOLOCAUST”

    After reading “Before the Silence: Archival News Reports That Beg to Be Remembered,” the words “Forgotten Genocides” must heretofore be known as the “Remembered Genocides!”

    ###

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*