“Aurora’s Sunrise” is one of the most noticed animated films of 2022, notably with an official selection at the Annecy Animation Festival, a reference in the field.
He represented Armenia this year in the race for the Oscars for Best International Film.
“Aurora’s Sunrise” the true story of a young Armenian girl, Aurora Mardiganian who survived the massacres of Armenians by the Turks in 1915, and whose story ended up on the big screen in Hollywood…
The film mixes animation and archival documents to tell this personal story which is also that of a people.
From her native Western Armenia to the United States, the path was arduous and perilous for the young orphan. But after landing at Ellis Island in 1917, Aurora meets journalist Henry Louis Gates who writes an article detailing her story, and her unlikely survival amid the chaos.
The article becomes a series of episodes, then a scenario and a film. One of the first biopics in the history of cinema, in short, especially since Aurora was chosen to replay her own story. The movie is called “Auction of Souls” (The Auction of Souls), and is signed Oscar Apfel.
The film was one of the big hits of the early 1920s in the United States.
She recounts in detail the violence, the murders, the rapes and her entire family murdered, the flight and the exile…
For Inna Sahakyan, “animation and illustrations were the best tools to capture this beauty and the memories of my main character”.
The film is the first animated documentary of this type made in Armenia, with a substantial participation of European co-producers (Lithuania and Germany).
The film of great aesthetic mastery is also an act of memory for Armenia, and brings to light the journey of a woman, Aurora Mardiganian, who has returned from darkness…