Jakob Michael Hagopian (Armenian:Մայքլ Հակոբ Հակոբյան; October 20, 1913 – December 10, 2010)[1] was anArmenian-bornAmericanEmmy-nominated filmmaker.
Hagopian was born to an Armenian family on 20 October 1913, inKharpert,Mamuret-ul-Aziz Vilayet,Ottoman Empire. In summer of 1915, when the Ottoman soldiers rampaged through Kharpert, Michael's mother hid her child in amulberry bush and prayed that the soldiers would not find him. Both escaped,[2] and moved toFresno, California.
Hagopian received an undergraduate degree from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and after receiving a doctorate ininternational relations fromHarvard University, he went into cinema and founded the Atlantis Films Company, which produced over fifty documentary films on ethnic minorities and foreign lands.[3] He won critical acclaim, including twoEmmy nominations for his filmThe Forgotten Genocide, the first full-length feature on theArmenian genocide. The film encompassed twenty years of research and nearly 400 witness interviews.[citation needed]
In 1979, Hagopian founded the non-profitArmenian Film Foundation dedicated to preserving the visual and personal histories of the witnesses to the Armenian Genocide.[4]
In 2004 Hagopian's "Germany and the Secret Genocide" documentary became the winner of US International Film & Video Festival.[5]
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 inHollywood,California, four days after Hagopian’s 95th birthday.[6]
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