12/02/2007

There is fear in Germany that the Berlinale presentation of the film by the Taviani brothers on the Armenian genocide might set off unrest within the Turkish community.

According to weekly paper Der Spiegel, the screening of The Lark Farm [+see also:
trailer
film profile], scheduled for Tuesday in the Berlinale Special section, could stir up violent protest among the 250,000 Turks living in the German capital, compelling the festival to already request added security measures.

The Hamburg-based weekly writes that the film "could become the political scandal of this Berlinale" and criticises festival organisers for deciding not to present it in competition. "The most important and disturbing contribution to the culture of memory is out of competition", writes Der Spiegel, according to which the Taviani brothers have created terribly tragic images.

In an interview accompanying the article, the two Italian directors specify that "each scene, even the most brutal one, is historically documented". Says Paolo Taviani: "We do not speak of genocide, since historians are the one who must establish if that it what it was. We speak of a tragedy and do not want to put forth any hypothesis with our film. Similar scenes have played out in the Balkans, Rwanda, Sudan. We Italians have killed, the Germans have killed. Terror can take place anywhere, at anytime, so why keep silent on the Armenian tragedy?".

(Translated from Italian)