ProjectsIn development · feature documentary
Titanic Love
One survivor’s journey from Ottoman persecution to the Titanic—and the decade-long search that brought him home to his wife.
A love story carried across an ocean.
Before the Titanic sailed, David Vartanian and five other young Armenian men left Keghi, Erzurum, fleeing persecution and forced Ottoman conscription. David left behind his wife, Mary Byzar Vartanian, with a promise to find a way back to her.
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic sank. David and Nishan Krikorian survived; four of their companions did not. Titanic Love follows David from the freezing water to Manhattan, then through his determined search for Mary as the Armenian Genocide unfolded overseas.
Their 1923 reunion at Niagara Falls is the emotional center of a larger story: how Armenian immigrants survived catastrophe, built new lives, and helped shape the country they reached.
The film
From survival to contribution.
Through descendant voices, archival photographs, immigration records, ship manifests, historians, and the places where this story unfolded, the film moves from David and Mary’s private loss toward the enduring legacy of Armenian-American families.
It pairs the intimacy of one marriage with the broader story of immigrant labor, ingenuity, cultural achievement, and service—without losing sight of the people whose lives made that legacy possible.