CS Video: Terry George and His The Promise Cast

CS sits down with director Terry George and his ensemble The Promise cast

Beginning in 1915 and lasting for nearly a decade, the Armenian Genocide resulted in a million and a half deaths. The horrifying history serves as the backdrop for The Promise, a new period drama from Hotel Rwanda‘s Terry George. CS recently sat down with Terry George and his The Promise cast, including stars Christian Bale, Charlotte Le Bon, Angela Sarafyan, Shohreh Aghdashloo and James Cromwell. In the player below, you can take a look at what makes The Promise such an important and story and one terrifyingly relevant more than a century later.

RELATED: Watch The Promise Movie Trailer

The Promise cast also includes Oscar Isaac and Daniel Giménez-Cacho. As the Great War looms, the vast Ottoman Empire is crumbling. Constantinople (Istanbul), its once vibrant, multicultural capital is about to be consumed by chaos. Michael Boghosian (Isaac), arrives in the cosmopolitan hub as a medical student determined to bring modern medicine back to Siroun, his ancestral village in Southern Turkey where Turkish Muslims and Armenian Christians have lived side by side for centuries. Photo-journalist Chris Myers (Bale), has come here only partly to cover geo-politics. He is mesmerized by his love for Ana (Le Bon), an Armenian artist he has accompanied from Paris after the sudden death of her father. When Michael meets Ana, their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men even as Michael hangs on to a promise from his past. After the Turks join the war on the German side, the Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities. Despite their conflicts, everyone must find a way to survive — even as monumental events envelope their lives.

Written by Terry George and Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), the promise hits the big screen April 21.