SUNRISE

Armenia 2022 - DCP - 96 minutes, in Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, and German with English subtitles

Director: Inna Sahakyan

Screenplay: Peter Liakhov, Kerstin Meyer-Beetz, Inna Sahakyan

Producers: Christian Beetz, Kestutis Drazdauskas, Eric Esrailian, Vardan Hovhannisyan, Juste Michailinaite, Inna Sahakyan

Cast: Anzhelika Hakobyan, Arpi Petrossian

Print Courtesy: Venera Films

Animation? To deal with a holocaust? It works amazingly well in Aurora’s Sunrise, and perhaps better than any other way could. Based on true personal as well as political stories, Aurora’s Sunrise mixes animation with actual footage of Aurora in the early, silent films in which she starred. At the age of 14, Aurora lost everything during the horror of the Armenian genocide. Two years later, through luck and extraordinary courage, she escaped to New York, where her story became a media sensation. Starring as herself in Auction of Souls, an early Hollywood blockbuster, Aurora became the face of one of the largest charity campaigns in American history. With a blend of vivid animation, interviews with Aurora herself, and 18 minutes of surviving footage from her lost silent epic, Aurora’s Sunrise revives a forgotten story of survival—and enchants and amazes. —KE