Local group sells out screening of “The Promise” in Alexandria

PanARMENIAN.Net - A new movie hit the big screens this weekend that's getting a lot of attention in Alexandria and even led one individual to buy out a whole screening at the Grand Theater, KALB reports.

The Promise is a movie surrounding the events of the Armenian Genocide in the early 1910s.

During that time 1.5 million Armenians and other ethnic and religious minorities were exterminated by the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey.

Now a little more than 100 years later, a local group of Armenians made sure The Promise was showing in Alexandria. On Sunday, April 23 one of them, Azar Kayal, bought out a screening to promote it to friends and family.

Among those attending was Dr. Henry Robertson, a history professor at Louisiana College. He said the Armenian Genocide is a holocaust that many people are unaware of.

So he encouraged his students to come out to the showing so they could understand the importance of the incident.

"So I think our students should go to the film, and then get active in helping the government of Turkey come to the realization that a mass genocide happened under their watch,” said Dr. Robertson. “And I think more than anything our students can get involved and active because Turkey is a NATO ally. And they need to share the western values of the US and Europe, and that is for human life and to not deny the facts of history."