Aurora Mardiganian became a surprising sensation in America in the late 1910s. A survivor of the massacre and exile of the Armenian people, her story became a cause celebre and was turned into a movie: Auction of Souls.

Following the first World War, President Wilson sought an American mandate for Armenia, but his plan was defeated in Congress and, shortly afterwards, copies of the film vanished.

A new documentary, Aurora's Sunrise, uses recovered scenes from the film, archival testimony, and animation, to tell Aurora's story.

Inna Sahakyan is the film's director and co-writer and in the Drawing Room she explores the story around the film, which won Best Animated Film at the Asian Pacific Screen Awards, and was the Armenian entry for the Oscars this year.