Online showing of first feature film on Armenian Genocide
organized
26-02-2009 17:10:00 | Armenia | Politics
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The 90th anniversary of
publication of the "Ravished Armenia" memoirs and the "Auction
of Souls" silent film shot by its scenario at the Metro Goldwin
Mayer studio is marked this year. On the occasion of the 90th
anniversary of the "Ravished Armenia", the Armenian Genocide
Museum-Institute has issued a memorial postcard and has created
an online exhibition at Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute's
official website www.genocide-museum.am.
"Ravished Armenia", one of the first documentary memoirs of
an eyewitness of Armenian Genocide was published in 1918, in New
York. In this book Arshaluys (Aurora) Mardiganian, a girl from
Chmshkatsag, Armenian populated town in the Ottoman Empire, gave
a detailed account of the terrible experiences she endured
during the deportations. At the age of fourteen Arshaluys was
beaten and tortured in harems of Turkish officials and Kurdish
tribesmen.
The book "Ravished Armenia" was completed when American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief offered to create a
film based on the scenario of the book and all the profit, which
later on reached $30 million, would be given to 60.000 Armenian
orphans in the Near East for relief purposes. In 1918, at Metro
Goldwin Mayer studio, director Oscar Apfel made "Auction of
Souls" silent film, which actually became not only the first
movie on the Armenian genocide, but also the first genocide
movie ever made. More than 10.000 Armenian residents of Southern
California, including 200 deported children, participated in the
scenes.
The premiere of the "Auction of Souls" was held on February
16, 1919, in Plaza Hotel, New York under the auspices of Oliver
Harriman and George Vanderbilt, members of American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief. The film was shown in large
cities of 23 U.S. states, in several countries of Latin America,
including Mexico and Cuba. It was a success everywhere and was
estimated as "epoch-making film."
The "Auction of Souls" was taken to Great Britain in
December, 1919, and censured. After long lasting negotiations
the film was shown in Royal Albert Hall, by the permission of
Scotland Yard and played for three weeks. At the beginning of
1920s Mardiganian's "Ravished Armenia" was censured and taken
off the British and American libraries.
For over eighty years film historians have been searching
the world for the nine reels of Ravished Armenia but failed to
find any trace. The remaining reels of the rare nitrate based
film were lost. Some say the reels presumably sunk with a ship
on their way to the port of Batoum, Georgia, or stolen by
thieves. The full-length version of the film, which lasting 85
minutes, unfortunately, hasn't been saved. With the efforts of
Eduard Gozanlian, an Armenian from Argentina, a 20 minute
segment of the reel was found in 1994. One copy of that segment
is kept in the funds of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. The
film included English, French and Armenian subtitles for every
scene. The list of the original subtitles for Ravished Armenia
is preserved in The Selig Collection at the Margaret Herrick
Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They
are also reproduced in Anthony Slide's book "Ravished Armenia
and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian". This book was published by
Scarecrow Press in 1997. It tells the story of the making of the
film and reveals the young girl's survival story.