George Mavropoulos, Founder and President of the AMPHRC
George Mavropoulos, a retired engineer, has taken on the mission to educate the world about the Greek Genocide. He explains, “The Ottoman government tried to get rid of these people because they had a different faith. Their main plan was Turkey for Turks. There was no room for the Christians, so they had to eliminate them. They destroyed everything that showed the Greeks existed in this area. Growing up, I felt my father’s nostalgia for his homeland. My grandfather died in the labor battalions at 43 years of age, I never got to know him. This was tragic not only for me but for the thousands that perished and the survivors. I founded the Hellenic Research Center so that the new generations will know the catastrophic end of the 3000-year history of the Hellenes of Asia Minor and Pontus.”
Peter Lambrinatos, Director
The film’s director, Lambrinatos is a videographer, producer, director, and editor who has worked for CBS News, Univision, Chicago’s WBBM-TV, WGN-TV, and independent production companies. He has shot and directed news and feature stories in Cuba, Mexico and Greece. Lambrinatos adds, “I took on this challenging project using actual footage, firsthand accounts, expert testimony and academic researchers and government documents provided by the AMPHRC to internationalize a part of history that has been silenced for over a century. it was a genocide of the Greek people of Asia Minor and Pontus.”
Bill Kurtis, Narrator
The narrator, Kurtis is a legendary American television journalist, television producer, narrator, and news anchor. He was also the host of a number of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files. Kurtis notes, “This production is one of the most important projects that I’ve ever been associated with and it provides a sobering lesson as to why we should never forget the suffering that is caused by the genocide.”
About the AMPHRC
The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center (AMPHRC) is a historical society and a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization founded in January 2011 and based in Chicago, Illinois. The goal of the research center is to document and disseminate information about the Greek communities of the later Ottoman empire and study the expulsion of the Greeks from their ancestral homelands in Asia Minor (or Anatolia), Eastern Thrace, and Pontos. The Center sponsors academic conferences, works with the Hellenic Foundation and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and has published teaching guides for schools and books with original research. Visit the
AMPHRC website for more information and to order its publications direct. For private group showings of the film please email
info@hellenicresearchcenter.org .
About the LAGFF
The Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that focuses its attention on bringing films and filmmakers from Greece, Cyprus, and the rest of the world to the United States. Over the past 15 years, LAGFF has screened over 520 films and hosted over 500 filmmakers supporting their films. More information is available online:
https://www.lagff.org .
