Filmmaker Atom Egoyan and wife/actor Arsinee Khanjian grew up very differently, but came to a similar point of dedication to sharing the sad history of their Armenian forebears with the world through the movie Ararat.

Dealing with the ghosts of genocide Egoyan and Khanjian tell of their passion for Armenia

"You look after your ghosts, and I'll look after mine."

Arsinée Khanjian speaks that line in Ararat, the movie by her husband, Atom Egoyan, to be screened at tonight's gala opening of the Toronto International Film Festival.

In the picture, she's talking to her son, but in the middle of this three-way phone conversation between Toronto and Montreal, she might just as well be addressing her real-life spouse.

The major subject of the film is the Armenian genocide - the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks in 1915, which the Turkish government continues to insist never happened. It's a topic Egoyan and Khanjian feel passionately about, but they came to that passion by vastly different routes.

Those differences went into weaving the tapestry of this complex and controversial work of art.

Egoyan was born in Egypt, but his parents moved to Canada when he was only 2 and settled in - of all places - Victoria, B.C. He laughs at their choice.

"That was a really odd decision my parents made. We were the only Armenian family around. We tried to treat Armenian as my mother tongue at home, but I wanted to be like other kids, and I spoke Canadian."

You can hear the wonder as Egoyan recalls how strange it was.

"We had no church, no school, no community centre, and yet I was still Armenian. I was aware of the genocide, but only in the vaguest way. I knew that something had befallen my people. But it remained something shadowy that I heard about."

The softer voice of Egoyan is replaced by Khanjian's, coming sharply to the point. There are no shadowy memories in her world.

"I was born in Beirut, the grandchild of genocide orphans. I spoke Armenian. I went to an Armenian school. My upbringing was self-sufficient and self-referential. That is the reality of the Middle East."

She pauses when asked when she first heard of the genocide. "It must have begun so soon that I wasn't even aware. History was scrupulously unfolded very early on - this sense of remembering as a social, cultural obligation. Not only something I was given, but something I had to pass on."

She moved to Canada at 17.

Meanwhile, Egoyan, then a young student at the University of Toronto, had embarked on what he called "a methodical investigation" of the genocide issue, and was horrified to discover not only the event itself, but the Turks' ongoing denial of it.

Around the world in the early 1980s, Armenians of Egoyan and Khanjian's generation were delving into their past, not content merely to remember and suffer in silence.

A wave of guerrilla activity began, with Armenian activists moving against Turkish groups and individuals, trying to get them to admit to the well-documented horrors of 1915.

"And then," as Egoyan recalls, "It all came to a peak. Arsinée and I met in 1984, and the next year ..." They're both silent as they recall what happened.

On March 12, 1985, three armed Armenians stormed the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa. A Canadian security guard was killed, the ambassador was badly wounded, and his wife and daughter were taken hostage.

"I still remember the two of us watching it on TV. I'll never forget it."

Egoyan's voice is thick with emotion. "It's something I feel very passionately about, but I come from a different place than Arsinée."

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`If we don't actually examine something and bring it to light, then we never learn, and it all happened for no reason at all.' Filmmaker Atom Egoyan

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"It's not that anyone is saying that act in Ottawa was justified," begins Khanjian, "but it really put the Armenian genocide on the table."

She grows angry.

"Something was being denied, something was being suppressed, as though it had never existed."

There is a telling line from the film: "The Turkish authorities don't want to admit it happened. Why not? You'll have to ask them."

She explains: "The entire system of Turkey is based on certain national myths. One of them is that it is a tolerant culture. To have to publicly admit these events would be the beginning of the unravelling. They don't want to be recognized as the kind of people who would have committed those sort of acts."

Egoyan tackles the issue by describing a pivotal scene. One of the actors in the film-within-a-film being made about the genocide is a Turkish Canadian named Ali (Elias Koteas).

In the movie, he's had to play a villainous character that even Egoyan calls "the evil Turk." After the scene is done, he tries to discuss how he feels about it with the elderly Armenian directing the film, but he gets nowhere.

Guiltily, the director sends a young Armenian Canadian assistant to Ali's house with champagne. The Armenian is himself on a steep but rapid learning curve about the genocide, after shutting his mind to it when his father, a terrorist, was murdered.

The two Canadians - Turk and Armenian - discuss the issues the film has raised. Ali suggests that they drink the champagne and start all over again, because the past is past.

"This is so tempting to accept," admits Egoyan, "but if we don't actually examine something and bring it to light, then we never learn, and it all happened for no reason at all."

The young Armenian turns down the proffered champagne and continues on his quest for the truth.

"I put those two people together because you are at the mercy of whatever juncture someone is at in their lives when you tell them a story. History is defined by moments between individuals. Moments when we're ready to listen to someone else's story."

Asked if he thinks the time is right, the enthusiasm rushes back.

"This is the moment. Oh, definitely. This story touches on so many other issues that we are having to deal with now. It's all about how open we are to testing the tolerances of our society. It requires leaps of imagination from Turks, Armenians, Canadians ... from everyone involved."

More coolly, Khanjian concurs.

"It's an amazing opportunity to create a dialogue on how to start to talk about this issue ... assuming that there is something to discuss. The genocide still seems to be off the agenda on the Turkish side."

When announced at Cannes, the film drew a certain hostility from Turkey, including veiled threats.

"Strangely enough, I never felt fear," Egoyan says. "I never felt physically threatened."

He manages a laugh. "I might be really naïve about this, but I have every reason to look forward to screening it at the Istanbul Film Festival. That would be an amazing breakthrough."

Khanjian comments with her usual quiet steel: "Identity is a very important question." Egoyan responds with his hopeful humanity: "Memory is a strange and wonderful space."

Between the two of them, in many ways, lies the story of Ararat.

Toronto Star Article