By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Inna Sahakyan
Year: 2023
Running time: 96
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20873160/reference/
Michael says: “A fascinating, beautifully recounted documentary about a teenaged girl who survived losing her family, enduring rape and slavery during the Armenian genocide, only to end up in the manipulative mechanisms of Hollywood. Aurora Mardiganian survived months of marching through the desert as a captive of the Turks, being repeatedly sold into slavery, escaping only to be recaptured, before finally managing to fully escape to the U.S. Once in the States, she begins to tell her story and the story of what was happening to Armenians, and she was discovered by some influential people to help amplify her voice. One method to spread the word of the horror was to make a Hollywood silent film called AUCTION OF SOULS, starring Aurora, where she is forced to relive the experiences she went through onscreen. A promotional tour followed leading to massive success breaking box office records. In the late 1920s, expanding US-Turkish relations caused any mention of the Genocide to fade away and soon after, all copies of AUCTION OF SOULS were believed to be lost. Only in 1994, several months after Aurora’s death in the 1990’s, fragments of AUCTION OF SOULS were rediscovered.
“Director Inna Sahakyan was presented with a storytelling conundrum. She had wonderful video interviews of Aurora testifying about her experiences in her later years, and she had 18 minutes of restored footage from AUCTION OF SOULS, but most of the story was lost to time. Her choices were recreations using actors, always a risky endeavor, especially with such horrific events to portray, or animation. Thinking of some of the powerful animated docs of recent years such as
FLEE and
WALTZ WITH BASHIR, Sahakyan went with animation to fill out the story of Aurora’s life. It’s an effective choice, one that is often too distancing for me to appreciate, but it worked well in this case. Aurora’s story is both mind-boggling and powerful, and deserves to be seen by a wide audience.
3 1/2 cats“
Amanda says: “In AURORA’S SUNRISE, Director Inna Sahakyan recounts the story of Aurora Mardiganian (Arshaluys Martikian), a teenage survivor of the Armenian genocide who emigrated to New York and, determined to tell the world what was happening in Armenia, became a (reluctant) celebrity, first by sharing her story with the press and then starring as herself in the silent film AUCTION OF SOULS. The film is constructed from oral history interviews with an elderly Aurora, the surviving fragments of AUCTION OF SOULS (discovered after Aurora’s death in the 1990s), and animated segments depicting the events described in the interviews and shown in the film fragments. Going into the screening, I was a bit skeptical about whether or not the animation would work, based on past experiences, but I found it to be beautifully done. During the post-film Q&A, the Director mentioned that the lead animators were based in Armenia, which I appreciated. Overall, the film was excellent, and I learned a lot. Even though I live in an area outside Boston with a large Armenian population, I realize that I don’t know nearly enough about the genocide and the U.S. response to it. 4.5 cats (seen at IFF Boston 2023)”
