Tribute to Sergei Parajanov
Sergei Parajanov was born on January 9th, 1924 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He studied railway engineering, and later studied song and violin at the Tbilisi Conservatory of Music, before attending the Moscow Film School from 1946 to 1951. His diploma film, Moldavian Fairy Tale (1951) has been lost. He made several documentary films during the 1950s which are in the Kiev archive, and then made a series of feature films at Dovzhenko Studios: The First Lad, Ukrainian Rhapsody, and The Flower on the Stone. Then in 1964 Paradjanov’s ninth film, Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors, created a furor by revolting against the Social Realist principles of Soviet cinema. The film had a very limited release in the Soviet Union, though it received awards at international film festivals. His next films were plagued by production interruptions and other difficulties. He began shooting a film called Sayat Nova in Armenia but the director’s cut was confiscated; Paradjanov eliminated 20 minutes from his original film in order to rescue the project, and released the re-edited remainder under the title of The Color of Pomegranates (1969). Widely acclaimed as a masterwork of modern cinema, The Color of Pomegranates yet remains a fragment of its creator’s original vision: “My masterpiece no longer exists,” Paradjanov said. Paradjanov’s career was forcibly halted at this point. He was arrested in Kiev in 1973 and sentenced on April 25, 1974 to five years in a prison camp. The charges against him were: “business with art objects”, “leaning towards homosexuality”, “incitement to suicide,” and “black-marketing.” Released in 1978 following protests by friends and artists world-wide (between these Andrei Tarkovsky, Tonino Guerra, Federico Fellini, Giulietta Masina, Michelangelo Antonioni), he was allowed to return home to Tbilisi, but not allowed to make films. In 1982, he was again arrested and detained by the KGB. After 15 years of being blacklisted, Paradjanov was finally allowed to make several films in Tbilisi. He had just begun making an autobiographical film, Confessions, in 1989 when he fell ill with lung cancer. He died on July 20, 1990, in Yerevan, where he was buried.

The Color of the Pomegranate
(Armenia, 1969, 88’)
One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov’s “Color of the Pomegranate”, a biography of the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) reveals the poet’s life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events in Sayat Nova’s life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die, but these incidents are depicted in the context of what are images from Sergei Parajanov’s imagination and Sayat Nova’s poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard. Sofiko Chiaureli plays 6 roles, both male and female, and Sergei Parajanov writes, directs, edits, choreographs, works on costumes, design and decor and virtually every aspect of this revolutionary work void of any dialog or camera movement.

Shadows of forgotten ancestors
(USSR, 1964, 92’)
In a Carpathian village, Ivan falls in love with Marichka, the daughter of his father’s killer. When tragedy befalls her, his grief lasts months; finally he rejoins the colorful life around him, marrying Palagna. She wants children but his mind stays on his lost love. To recapture his attention, Palagna tries sorcery, and in the process comes under the spell of the sorcerer, publicly humiliating Ivan, who then fights the sorcerer. The lively rhythms of village life, the work and the holidays, the pageant and revelry of weddings and funerals, the change of seasons, and nature’s beauty give proportion to Ivan’s tragedy.

The legend of Suram fortress
(USSR, 1984, 83’)
Based on an ancient legend, this dazzling film by visionary director Sergei Paradjanov is a surreal ode to Georgian warriors throughout the ages who died for their country. Repeated efforts by the Georgian people to construct a defensive stronghold continually fail. The building collapses until a fortune teller remembers an old prophecy that the son of her erstwhile lover must be bricked up alive in order for the fortress to stand. The young man is faced with the prospect of sacrificing himself to save his country.