Hagopian received an undergraduate degree from the University of California , Berkeley , and after receiving a doctorate in international relations from Harvard University , he went into cinema and founded the Atlantis Films Company , which produced over fifty documentary films on ethnic minorities and foreign lands . He won critical acclaim , including two Emmy nominations for his film '' The Forgotten Genocide '' , the first full-length feature on the Armenian Genocide . The film encompassed twenty years of research and nearly 400 witness interviews . In 1979 , Hagopian founded the non-profit Armenian Film Foundation dedicated to preserving the visual and personal histories of the witnesses to the Armenian Genocide . 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 in Hollywood , California , four days after Hagopian ’s 95th birthday
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
J. Michael Hagopian