Parajanov: Poslechnya Vesna
Armenia,
1993, 55 min
Shown in 1995
CREDITS
- dir
-
Mikhail Vartanov
- prod
-
Mikhail Vartanov
- scr
-
Mikhail Vartanov, Martizos Vartaniants
- cam
-
Mikhail Vartanov, Haie Kirakossian
- editor
-
S. Manoutcharian, G. Amalbashian
- source
-
VARDA-NOVA
- gga award
-
Best Artist Profile, Film & Video: Short Documentary
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
OTHER
This personal, moving documentary covers the last days of Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. Born in Tblisi, he studied film in Moscow with Dovzhenko. He directed 11 films, including Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (SFIFF 1965) and Ashik Kerib (SFIFF 1989) and spent five years in a labor camp for homosexuality. Haunting images of his last days, including an extraordinary sequence dramatizing a Georgian funeral, flow smoothly into clips from his films, punctuated by the torture of a damned soul. As his former student, Vartanov’s personal connection to the artist brings us to grips with him in a way that abandons information in favor of sensation and intensity, drawing us into a world where myth meets history, and Parajanov becomes an allegory for creativity, passion and freedom. Parajanov died in 1990, a great loss for world cinema.
—Olga Andreyev Carlisle
FACTOID #125
According to the November 29, 1959 San Diego Union, The Village on the River was the first Dutch feature ever shown in the U.S. (at the Third San Francisco International Film Festival).
