Atom Egoyan is stunned at the furor surrounding his new Cannes-bound movie Ararat.

"People are discussing a film that they haven't seen and talking about scenes that don't exist," the Toronto-based director told The Star in an interview yesterday. "I have never encountered that before."

Ararat is about the making of a movie in Toronto, a historical look at the mass killing of Armenians by Turks in 1915. It will debut at the May 15-26 festival on the Riviera.

The festival announced yesterday that 22 films will compete for the prestigious Palme d'Or, including Spider, by Canadian David Cronenberg.

But with the controversy around Ararat, Egoyan won't enter it into competition.

"Given the fact that it is dealing with history that hasn't really been presented on film before and there are so many judgments that have already been imposed on it, the idea of subjecting it to an actual jury didn't sit well," he said.

"My past three films have been in competition and, having served on the jury, it seemed to me that a whole other political process would then be imposed on what had already become a politicized film." Ararat screens May 20.

There have been protests from Turkish groups, some of whom are threatening to boycott the film.

"Some of the groups are imagining it in the worst possible way," said Egoyan, who is of Armenian descent.

"I think once the Turkish community sees the film, they will see that it is very, very fair. The Turkish community has been very much maligned by films such as Midnight Express and even Lawrence Of Arabia, but this film is nothing like that."

Turkey has admitted that 300,000 Armenians were killed as they were being relocated to stop them helping the invading Russian army. But it denies that up to 1.3 million were massacred by the then-Ottoman government.

Egoyan says he is "aware of the responsibilities" when dealing with such a sensitive period in history. "I have tried to be as fair-minded and responsible as possible, but I make no bones about the fact that this is an event that absolutely did occur.

"It is not really accepted by the perpetrators. There has been an exhaustive process of research by the governments of France and Greece and the European parliament. To me, it is an absolute given, it is irrefutable and there is nothing to be discussed about it."

Reports that the Turkish government might take legal action against the film have been denied by Erhan Ogut, the Turkish ambassador to Canada. "Of course there is artistic freedom, there is freedom of expression," Ogut told Canadian Press. "We are as respectful of that as anyone else. So there's no question of attempting to take legal action against the film." But Ogut added that individual groups might take "justifiable action."

Egoyan stresses that the film is set in contemporary Toronto and focuses on contemporary characters. Some are involved in making the film, some aren't. The film, "invites the question of how much history we actually can bring to these new places and what investments we have to make when we listen to other people's stories."

Three former winners are among the Cannes competition entries: British director Mike Leigh with All Or Nothing, Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (who will be in Toronto for a retrospective of his work at Cinematheque Ontario beginning May 3) with 10 and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne of Belgium with Le Fils.

Other big names include documentary filmmaker Michael Moore with Bowling For Columbine, Roman Polanski with The Pianist, Ken Loach with Sweet Sixteen and Michael Winterbottom with 24-Hour Party People,

American documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's first fictional work, The Last Letter, will also be screened at Cannes. He is being honoured with a lifetime achievement award at next week's Hot Docs festival. A selection of his past works will be shown there and at Cinematheque Ontario.

Also in competition at Cannes will be The Stone Of Folly, a Toronto-produced animated work directed by Jesse Rosensweet.

Toronto Star article