Jakob Michael Hagopian ( hy, Մայքլ Հակոբ Հակոբյան; October 20, 1913 – December 10, 2010) was an
Armenian-born
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
n
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
-nominated filmmaker.
Biography
Hagopian was born to an Armenian family on 20 October 1913, in
Kharpert,
Mamuret-ul-Aziz Vilayet,
Ottoman Empire. In summer of 1915, when the Ottoman soldiers rampaged through Kharpert, Michael's mother hid her child in a
mulberry
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...
bush and prayed that the soldiers would not find him. Both escaped, and moved to
Fresno, California.
Hagopian received an undergraduate degree from the
University of California, Berkeley, and after receiving a doctorate in
international relations from
Harvard University, he went into cinema and founded the Atlantis Films Company, which produced over fifty documentary films on ethnic minorities and foreign lands.
He won critical acclaim, including two
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
nominations for his film ''The Forgotten Genocide'', the first full-length feature on the
Armenian genocide. The film encompassed twenty years of research and nearly 400 witness interviews.
In 1979, Hagopian founded the non-profit
Armenian Film Foundation dedicated to preserving the visual and personal histories of the witnesses to the Armenian Genocide.
In 2004 Hagopian's "Germany and the Secret Genocide" documentary became the winner of US International Film & Video Festival.
The pre-release version of Hagopian's 58-minute documentary "The River Ran Red" opened the Eighth Annual Arpa International Film Festival on Oct. 24, 2008 at the Egyptian Theatre in
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
,
California, four days after Hagopian’s 95th birthday.
Other awards
*Arpa Lifetime Achievement Award.
*
Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award, 2006.
*
Jewish World Watch's 'I Witness' Award.
Award-Winning Filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian Dies at 97
Asbarez, December 13, 2010
Filmography
*The Witnesses Trilogy
**''Part 3'':
**''Part 2'':
**''Part 1'':
*
*
* (Produced for the Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission of the State of California.)
*
*
*
*
*''California Armenians: The First Generation''
*''The Art of Traditional Armenian Cooking''
*
*Soviet Boy
*
*
References
External links
Armenian Film Foundation
(Official Website of the organization founded by Hagopian)
on the website of the Armenian Film Foundation
*
Hagopian at Armeniapedia
95-year-old Award-Winning Filmmaker Completes 70th Documentary, PRWeb, October 15, 2008
Award-Winning Filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian Dies at 97, Asbarez
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagopian, J Michael
1913 births
2010 deaths
People from Elazığ
People from Mamuret-ul-Aziz vilayet
Armenians from the Ottoman Empire
Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States
American film directors
Armenian refugees
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Harvard University alumni
American people of Armenian descent
Armenian genocide survivors