Aurora's Sunrise (2022)
Genre: Documentary / Animation
Duration: 96 minuten
Country:
Germany / Lithuania / Armenia
Directed by: Inna Sahakyan
Starst: Anzhelika Hakobyan, Arpi Petrossian and Shushan Abrahamyan
IMDb score:
7,9 (1.088)
Releasedate: 11 August 2023
Aurora's Sunrise plot
"When you choose to help others, you choose to relieve your pain."
In 1919 the silent film Auction of Souls premiered in New York, about a teenage girl who survived the Armenian genocide and fled to America. The main character was played by the survivor in question: Aurora Mardiganian. The film turned out to be a box office success and Mardiganian became world famous. Meanwhile, the massacres in Armenia continued and Mardiganian was nearly engulfed in traumatic reenactments, fueled by Hollywood's harsh publicity mill. Yet she chose to be the face of a humanitarian campaign, hoping to save her people.
Actors and actresses
Aurora
Aurora (voice)
Lusineh
German officer
Kurdish man
Charlie Chaplin
Henry Gates
Mrs. Harriman (voice)
First Aunt
Second Aunt
Reviews & comments
Hannibal
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- 9380 messages
- 3302 votes
Sledge hammer blow. This movie is so good, it cannot be described, you just have to watch it. The drawings are a joy to watch, the soundtrack is penetrating. I was completely sucked into this, it held me and didn't let go.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11659 messages
- 10059 votes
Arshalouys Martikian played the leading role in the highly successful Hollywood spectacle Auction of Souls under the pseudonym Aurora Mardiganian in 1919. She played herself in this reconstruction of her experiences as an Armenian teenager who lost almost her entire family from the spring of 1915 as a result of persecution by the Turks. Towards the end of the war she ended up in America and became the face of what was known and published mainly thanks to Auction of Souls and the series of news articles (later sold as a book under the title 'Ravished America'). many countries recognized as the Armenian Genocide. Sahakyan uses footage from an interview with Aurora and combines it with animations and excerpts from the 18 minutes of Auction of Souls footage that surfaced shortly after Aurora's death in 1994. The story is remarkable, relevant and still controversial because Turkey still refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide. But the use of the melodramatic imagery from Auction of Souls and Petrossian's monotonous voice-over limit the emotional impact of this story.
Translated from Dutch · View original
hvdriel
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- 397 messages
- 357 votes
An impressive story about the Armenian Genocide in a not so good film.
You could say you've got gold on your hands: interview footage of the main character who experienced the genocide, black-and-white fragments of the 1919 Hollywood film in which the main character played himself, and an animation department that can fill the lack of images. However, the gold is dusted by the choice of an off-screen voice for the girl, who tells the story and tells and tells it in an endless 'and then/and then' monologue.
This off-screen voice turns out to be disastrous, because the film has unfortunately become a picture book with the narrator's voice bouncing through the events and keeps saying how she feels. The basic rule of film (show them, don't tell them) is unfortunately flouted here.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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