99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 83

The film “Barking Island” talks indirectly about the Armenian Genocide. It presents historical facts about how the dogs in Constantinople were eliminated in 1910. The government of the Young Turks was responsible. So the film was not about the Armenian Genocide, but the metaphor was well chosen, because the same government was behind the Genocide. I had said this very thing in Turkey, but the local media twisted my words and wrote that my film has nothing to do with the Genocide. French-Armenian movie director, actor, screenwriter and producer. Serge Avedikian’s family repatriated to Armenia from France in 1947, influenced by Soviet propaganda, and then returned to France in 1970. Avedikian’s animated film “Barking Island” is set in Constantinople in 2010. The city is presented as the European capital of culture, but who could recall that thousands of dogs were slaughtered in 1910 in the name of Westernization and progress? From the European center of the city to its distant edges, the variety in opinions paints a picture of society presenting both its progressive side and its internal contradictions. “Barking Island” was awarded the Palme d’Or among short films at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.