Above all, a person must believe in what they are doing. I have a strong connection to the story of the documentary and to the journey of the main character, from Turkish H.K. to Armenian Asadur. I now want to capture this story of an individual, which simultaneously represents a story of many, with the camera. Life is always full of anonymous heroes. The more I spoke to Asadur, the more I was drawn into his story, pain, and drama. The 80-year search for an identity, full of contradictions and violent Islamization, and the forgetting of an Armenian identity is embossed.
Asadur and I were born in the same city about 50 years apart. We never met until the idea of the documentary came about. We didn’t follow the same path. But Asadur’s story and narrative power take people on a deep journey. We’ve experienced that many times during the preparation of the documentary film. We found a piece of our own lives and delved into it.
In the preparatory phase, we took great care to ensure the depth of the content. As an individual, I have read and studied hundreds of books and thousands of documents. I spoke and discussed with various authors about their knowledge and their attitudes toward the Armenian Genocide. I delved into the digital archives of university libraries in Germany and Armenia. In areas where I had difficulties obtaining information and verifying sources, I found great support from Alexis Kalk, one of the documentary’s co-producers and a script and character consultant.