LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Greek Film Festival will screen Lethal Nationalism: Genocide of the Greeks, Director’s Cut on Sunday, May 15, 12 PM, at the Regal LA Live Theater, 1000 W Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The powerful documentary chronicles the genocide of the indigenous Christians at the hands of the Ottoman and Nationalist Turks. It is directed and produced by Peter Lambrinatos and narrated by Bill Kurtis. Lethal Nationalism is a production of the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center (AMPHRC) and George Mavropoulos based in Chicago.

The film charts the genocide of Asia Minor’s Greek population by the Ottoman Empire and Turkish nationalists— the genocide that set the model for the Armenian and Assyrian subsequent genocides.

The official trailer for Lethal Nationalism: Genocide of the Greeks 1913-1923 is available on YouTube:

Tickets to the in-person screening are available online: https://bit.ly/3ld2bk1.

The film was made possible through the efforts of the AMPHRC whose President and Founder George Mavropoulos, along with a dedicated Board and Production team worked tirelessly to make a documentary of this historic tragedy.

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.”

The film’s director, Peter 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.”

The narrator, Bill 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: https://hellenicresearchcenter.org/ for more information and to order its publications directly. For private group showings of the film, email: [email protected].