Harutyun Harutyunyan’s film ‘The Price for Fake Peace’ will be screened in Pasadena

The film “The Price for Fake Peace” delves into historical events in Armenia from 107 years ago: the fall of Kars and Alexandropol. The film’s producer, Harutyun Harutyunyan, shared details with Alpha News.

“The film ‘The Price for Fake Peace’ was screened only once in Yerevan and several times in Gyumri. It was very well received and garnered enthusiastic feedback. We thought the film would be released in Yerevan theaters, but for some reason this did not happen, because, apparently, it has a frightening title. The film has nothing to do with today. It presents historical events that took place in Armenia 107 years ago: the fall of Kars and Alexandropol. It portrays the events before the Battle of Sardarapat, and if you look at what happened before the establishment of the First Republic, everything begins to make sense.

What happened then? What happened back then mirrors what is happening in modern Armenia. The people were told to surrender Kars in exchange for peace. Kars was surrendered, but we did not live in peace. The whole point of the film is that you cannot trust Turks. There are no original texts in the film, only archival materials were used. Nothing was falsified. Photographs of the cities of Kars and Gyumri of that era were taken, and realistic visuals were recreated using graphics. We did not show fictitious images,” the film’s producer noted.

According to him, the past and present periods have similarities, as if everything is repeating itself in the same way.

“If we compare the events of 107 years ago to today, we can see the patterns repeating. The psychology of people—their carelessness and indifference, their blind faith that everything will be fine and we will make friends with the Turks—remains unchanged. We also show, with evidence, the vast amount of ammunition left behind by the Tsarist Russian army in Kars following the Bolshevik Revolution. This parallels the vast amount of ammunition we left in Artsakh. The period, the unfolding events, and the process of the collapse of the army are all vividly reflected in the film,” Harutyunyan concluded.