Aurora's Sunrise

Within one year, the Armenian girl Aurora witnesses the death of her family and is sold into a Turkish harem. As seemingly the only survivor, she manages to escape to America. But even there she cannot protect herself from exploitation, for the Hollywood industry soon turns Aurora into an audience sensation as a symbolic figure for the suffering of her people and sends her on tour throughout America.

Aurora Mardiganian’s dramatic life story tells of the genocide of Christian Armenians by Turkish armed forces in the 1910s. Her biography became the best-selling book in Hollywood in the 1920s. In the film “Auction of Souls”, which also became a hit, Aurora recounts her traumatic odyssey. The film was considered lost for a long time, but some excerpts have since resurfaced. The documentary film “Aurora’s Sunrise” combines scenes from “Auctions of Souls”, excerpts from her book and fragments of interviews, with true-to-detail animations depicting Aurora’s memories of this time.

“Aurora’s Sunrise” was produced with the help of the Zoryan Institute, a non-profit organisation that serves the cause of scholarship and raises public awareness relating to issues of universal human rights, genocide and diaspora-homeland relations. (Xenia Nguyen)