‘Aurora’s Sunrise’ Animated Feature, Based on Genocide Survivor’s Story, to Be Shown in US, Canada

In 1915, as WWI raged on, the Ottoman Empire singled out its entire Armenian population for destruction. Only 14 years old at the time, Aurora Mardiganian’s story was tragically relatable. Forced onto a death march towards the Syrian desert, she lost her entire family before being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. Four years later, through luck and extraordinary courage, she escaped to New York, where her story became a media sensation. Starring as herself in the silent epic “Auction of Souls,” an early Hollywood blockbuster, Aurora became the face of one of the largest and most successful charity campaigns in American history, as one of the first women activists fighting against the injustices of war. With a blend of vivid animation, interviews with Aurora herself, and 18 minutes of surviving re-discovered footage from her lost silent epic, “Aurora’s Sunrise” revives a forgotten story of survival, hope and the endurance of the human spirit.

“The Armenian Genocide is the enduring pain of my nation,” said Sahakyan. “I was afraid of telling stories that only confirmed Armenians as a nation of victims with no historical agency and nothing but tragedy running through our veins. That is, until I stumbled upon an interview with Aurora Mardiganian while going through archival interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors at the Zoryan Institute. Through her words and expressions, an incredible but ordinary heroism shone: this woman survived a genocide but refused to be a victim. This is the character I wanted to build in ‘Aurora’s Sunrise,’ resilient, powerful and heartwarming all at once.”

Sahakyan has directed and produced feature-length documentaries, documentary series and shorts, for over 15 years. Following her feature-length debut co-directing the award-winning “Armenia’s Last Tightrope Dancer” in 2010, she directed “Mel” and “Aurora’s Sunrise,” completing both international co-productions in 2022. Inna also enjoys mentoring her native Armenia’s next generation of filmmakers.

Atom Egoyan (Director, “Ararat”) & Arsinée Khanjian (Star, “Ararat”) released a quote about the film: “A beautifully made film…captures the spirit and extraordinary scale of an unimaginable journey…a very powerful story of horror, survival and a most moving act of sharing…made with great artistry and attention to detail. Highly recommended!”

Bars Media documentary film studio was formed in 1993 by Vardan Hovhannisyan, a frontline-filmmaker who began his career covering the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union as a stringer for 24 hour news outlets. Created out of the need to tell honest stories in the chaos following Armenia’s independence, Bars Media became one of the country’s first independent film production companies, and to this day specializes in creating documentaries that tell human stories about conflict, culture, history and pressing social issues. Bars Media’s feature-length and short documentaries have been broadcast with BBC (UK), ARTE (France-Germany), WDR (Germany), PBS (US), NHK (Japan), NPO (Netherlands), YLE (Finland), Al Jazeera English (Qatar) among others. Located in Armenia, the studio is uniquely positioned at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, giving it a unique vantage point for discovering and uncovering a broad range of breathtaking stories from across the region and beyond. In 2023, Bars Media Films opened a new branch in Los Angeles to continue to bring the Armenian filmmaking lineage into the Western hemisphere.

The 2022 film is a joint production of Armenia, Germany and Lithuania. It was made possible with the academic contribution of the Zoryan Institute and is based on its Oral History Archive.