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Alex Arabian April 23, 2021 Director Terry George (left), producer Eric Esrailian, and actors Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale on the set of the 2016 film “The Promise.” Photo: Courtesy Eric Esrailian Between church in Potrero Hill and Armenian Saturday school in Ocean View, Eric Esrailian frequently watched movies at the Kabuki Theater in Japantown while growing up in San Francisco. Religion, education and the arts have played major roles in the physician, Emmy-nominated film producer and activist’s life. “I love storytelling,” the UC Berkeley alumnus told The Chronicle in a recent video interview from his home in Los Angeles. The fourth pillar of his development is his family’s story. Like many first-generation Armenian Americans in the Bay Area, the trauma of a long-denied history bears a heavy influence on Esrailian, whose great-grandparents escaped the Armenian genocide. ....
The Belfast-born writer and director Terry George is most at home in settings where there are troubles, and sorry about the unintentional play on words. With director Jim Sheridan he crafted two of the most searing and memorable films about his homeland and its tortured history, 1993’s “In the Name of the Father” and 1997’s “The Boxer,” both starring Daniel Day-Lewis. When he’s been behind the camera himself, he hasn’t chosen rom-coms: his 1998 HBO movie “A Bright Shining Lie” treated the Vietnam debacle from a particular military perspective, and 2004’s “Hotel Rwanda” took a focused look at one man’s action against the Rwandan genocide. Even George’s little-seen 2007 domestic tragedy “Reservation Road” had a larger point about societal ills animating its core. ....