Sergei Parajanov
- 1969The Color of Pomegranates
- 1965Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Fed into911
He told a poet's life in living tableaux, and Soviet authorities banned his projects and sent him to a labour camp.
Parajanov was born to an Armenian family in Tiflis, now Tbilisi, and studied film under Igor Savchenko and Alexander Dovzhenko. He moved to Kyiv after 1950 and began as a director of documentaries and studio pictures.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) made his name abroad with its costumes and colour, and its Kyiv premiere drew a political protest. In 1969 he moved to Armenia to make a film about the bard Sayat-Nova. Censors objected, changed its title to The Color of Pomegranates, and held it back.
Nearly all his projects from 1965 to 1973 were banned. Arrested in Kyiv in December 1973 and accused of homosexuality and propagating pornography, he served four years of a five-year sentence in a hard labour camp, and he was jailed again in 1982 on a bribery charge. He directed Ashik Kerib with Dodo Abashidze in 1988 and died in Yerevan in 1990. "I was born in Georgia, worked in Ukraine and I'm going to die in Armenia," he said.
Films
Where to start with Sergei Parajanov, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors to come. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Parajanov's breakthrough, adapted from a 1911 novella and steeped in folklore. Officials reproached him for going over budget, and he refused to make a Russian version.
Still from The Color of Pomegranates to come. The Color of Pomegranates
A life of the Armenian bard Sayat-Nova, told in chapters of living tableaux with little dialogue. Outside Armenia, Soviet audiences got only Sergei Yutkevich's 73-minute recut.
Echoed in
Where Parajanov's ideas turned up next.