[ An animated documentary film based on a true story, the film
follows Aurora Mardiganian’s life during and just after the Armenian
genocide.]
[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

“AURORA’S SUNRISE” ILLUMINATES THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE  
[[link removed]]


 

Dick Price and Sharon Kyle
August 15, 2023
Hollywood Progressive
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ An animated documentary film based on a true story, the film
follows Aurora Mardiganian’s life during and just after the Armenian
genocide. _

Aurora's Sunrise, Smithsonian

 

This past week we were blessed to view an early release of
“Aurora’s Sunrise
[[link removed]]” and meet its
writer, producer, and director, Inna Sahakyan.

An animated documentary film based on a true story, “Aurora’s
Sunrise” follows five years of Aurora Mardiganian’s life during
and just after the Armenian genocide, which sent an estimated 800,000
to 1.2 million Armenians
[[link removed]] on death marches
into the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916, ending 2,000 years of
Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia.

As many as 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted
to Islam and integrated into Muslim households during the genocide.
Very few of Aurora’s tight-knit family survived.

Using a compelling mix of animation, film clips from “Auction of
Souls [[link removed](film)]”—a
wildly popular 1919 silent film Aurora Mardiganian made shortly after
escaping to New York—and recovered clips of interviews she made near
the end of her life in the 1970s, “Sunrise” offers the clearest
insights imaginable into the horrors of the Armenian genocide.

According to writer, producer, and director Inna Sahakyan, today even
young Armenians—in Armenia and around the world—know well the not
yet fully acknowledged horrors their people suffered. Now, as
“Sunrise” moves into theaters and will come to PBS in the fall,
Inna is using this moving work to show new generations—not just
Armenians, but all people—how events can turn in such ugly
directions.

At one point in the recorded interviews, Aurora says the blind eye the
world turned toward the Armenian genocide sent the message to Nazis
two decades later that they could get a pass in murdering millions of
Jews and others during their Holocaust—a note we should take in our
era of anti-wokeness, anti-Black racism, antisemitism, anti-LGBT,
anti, anti, anti.

After working for more than seven years to complete “Aurora’s
Sunrise”—clearly a labor of love—Inna is turning now to a
happier story about elderly Armenians in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital,
who are brightening their sunset years by performing Shakespearean
plays.

“Aurora’s Sunrise” is playing in theaters now.

 

* Film Review
[[link removed]]
* Documentary Film
[[link removed]]
* Aurora's Sunrise
[[link removed]]
* Armenian genocide
[[link removed]]
* Inna Sahakyan (21076
[[link removed]]
* Aurora Mardiganian
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]