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The exceptional Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990) was born and lived a good portion of his life in Tbilisi, Georgia. He studied filmmaking in Moscow at VGIK, where one of his teachers and mentors was Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The initial part of his career was spent in Ukraine, where he made his first films, including the pivotal Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and Kyiv Frescoes. From there he made a series of remarkable films: The Color of Pomegranates, The Legend of Suram Fortress, and Ashik Kerib. Shot on location in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, respectively, these films cemented his reputation as an artist who worked across transnational boundaries in his exploration of myth and cultural traditions. Parajanov’s films have been extremely influential, though he struggled against the Soviet authorities, who banned and censored the films. He was arrested multiple times and served prison time because of his subversive behavior and sexual orientation.
This centennial tribute offers viewers a chance to see Parajanov’s best-known features, plus several of his rarely shown short films. His powerful use of symbolism and metaphor creates extraordinary, indelible images, and his use of eclectic objects, color, and costumes is unique in both style and approach. Patrick Cazals’s documentaries Sergei Parajanov: The Rebel and The Muse and the Magician offer important insights into the artist’s biography and aesthetic approach.
—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator