| The Last Assyrians | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Alaux |
| Produced by | Francois Le Bayon, Robert Alaux |
| Cinematography | Emile Loreaux |
| Editing by | Agnes Mouchel |
| Distributed by | Arte |
| Release date(s) | 2004 |
| Running time | 53 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | English, French, Syriac |
The Last Assyrians (French: Les Derniers Assyriens) is a French documentary film by Robert Alaux.
Contents |
This film tells of the building of the identity of the Aramaic speaking Christians, also known as Assyrians, Syriacs, Chaldeans or Arameans. They are one of the first people to convert to Christianity and they still speak Syriac, a modern dialect of Aramaic. Members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syriac Catholic Church, they come from Iraq, Turkey, Syria or Iran and claim to be descendants of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia.
Rejected from the official Catholic Church as heretics in the 5th century, they were named Nestorians or Jacobites by Western Christians. They have kept alive one of the oldest Christian liturgies, they translated ancient Greek texts first into Syriac and then in Arabic and evangelised China and Mongolia during the Golden Age of the Arabic Empire.
In 1915, together with the Armenians, they were the victims of genocide and many fled to Europe and the United States. Again, they were slaughtered in Iraq in 1933 during the Simele massacre. Even if they use various names as Chaldeans, Assyrians, Arameans, Suryoyo, Chaldo-Assyrians, Syriacs, Suroyo, Syrians, Suraye etc., they share the same culture and they belong to one people. Very few of them remain in Tur Abdin (Turkey), where monks protect some of the oldest monasteries of Christianity. There were around 1.5 million Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraq before 1990, now they are fleeing and the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council are working to help to maintain their culture.
This film is the result of a seven years work in Turkey (Tur Abdin, Qotchanes, Hakkâri), Iraq (before and after the arrival of American troops), Syria, USA and Europe. It contains interviews of Pr. Sebastian Brock (Oxford, UK) , and Pr. Joseph Yacoub (Lyon, France), and received support from the Aramaic speaking Churches. The documentary was made by Lieurac Productions(Paris, France) and financed by the Centre National de la Cinématographie.
It was broadcast on TV channels of Europe, North Africa and Middle East, and selected in several international festivals .[1] [2] [3]
This documentary film was one of the very first to tell this history and to speak of the Assyrian Syriac genocide. The last Assyrians supports the fight for its recognition, and various institutions show the film in order to keep alive the culture of this indigenous people of Mesopotamia.
A controversy took place about the title: a part of the Chaldean/Syriac/Aramean communities do not recognize the word 'Assyrian' as the name of their People. And some of these Eastern Christians claim they are Arab Christians without any other specific ethnicity.