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Exhibition of Sergey Parajanov's works to open in Vilnius
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/734780/exhibition-of-sergey-parajanovs-works-to-open-in-vilnius.html
20:47, 28 September, 2013
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. The Minister of Culture of the
Republic of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan will pay a visit to Vilnius (the
Republic of Lithuania) on October 2-4 to attend the opening ceremony
of the exhibition of works by Sergey Parajanov held within the
framework of the Lithuanian Chairmanship in the Council of Ministers
of the EU. "Armenpress" reports about this citing the official website
of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia.
Sergei Parajanov was born on January 9, 1924. He was Soviet Armenian
film director and artist who made significant contributions to the
Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He invented his own cinematic
style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of
socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This,
combined with his controversial lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet
authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his
films.
Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later
disowned all the films he made before 1964 as "garbage". After
directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (renamed Wild Horses of Fire
for most foreign distributions) Parajanov became something of an
international celebrity and simultaneously a target of attacks from
the system. Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965 to
1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film
administrations, both local (in Kyiv and Yerevan) and federal
(Goskino), almost without discussion, until he was finally arrested in
late 1973. He was imprisoned until 1977, despite a plethora of pleas
for pardon from various artists. Even after his release (he was
arrested for the third and last time in 1982) he was a persona non
grata in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the
political climate started to relax, that he could resume
directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor
Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films
greenlighted. His health seriously weakened by four years in labor
camps and nine months in prison in Tbilisi, Parajanov died of lung
cancer in 1990, at a time when, after almost 20 years of suppression,
his films were being featured at foreign film festivals.
In 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to
resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various
Georgian intellectuals, he created the multi-award-winning film Legend
of Suram Fortress, based on a novella by Daniel Chonkadze, his first
return to cinema since Sayat Nova fifteen years earlier. In 1988,
Parajanov made another multi-award-winning film, Ashik Kerib, based on
a story by Mikhail Lermontov. Parajanov dedicated the film to his
close friend Andrei Tarkovsky and "to all the children of the world".
Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved
too monumental for his failing health. He died of cancer in Yerevan,
Armenia, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving this final work, The
Confession, unfinished. It survives in its original negative as
Parajanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail
Vartanov in 1992. Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi,
Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo
Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his death. A telegram
that came to Russia read"The world of cinema has lost a magician".
The Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010
to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei
Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov.
http://armenpress.am/eng/news/734780/exhibition-of-sergey-parajanovs-works-to-open-in-vilnius.html
20:47, 28 September, 2013
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. The Minister of Culture of the
Republic of Armenia Hasmik Poghosyan will pay a visit to Vilnius (the
Republic of Lithuania) on October 2-4 to attend the opening ceremony
of the exhibition of works by Sergey Parajanov held within the
framework of the Lithuanian Chairmanship in the Council of Ministers
of the EU. "Armenpress" reports about this citing the official website
of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia.
Sergei Parajanov was born on January 9, 1924. He was Soviet Armenian
film director and artist who made significant contributions to the
Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He invented his own cinematic
style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of
socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This,
combined with his controversial lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet
authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his
films.
Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later
disowned all the films he made before 1964 as "garbage". After
directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (renamed Wild Horses of Fire
for most foreign distributions) Parajanov became something of an
international celebrity and simultaneously a target of attacks from
the system. Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965 to
1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film
administrations, both local (in Kyiv and Yerevan) and federal
(Goskino), almost without discussion, until he was finally arrested in
late 1973. He was imprisoned until 1977, despite a plethora of pleas
for pardon from various artists. Even after his release (he was
arrested for the third and last time in 1982) he was a persona non
grata in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the
political climate started to relax, that he could resume
directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor
Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films
greenlighted. His health seriously weakened by four years in labor
camps and nine months in prison in Tbilisi, Parajanov died of lung
cancer in 1990, at a time when, after almost 20 years of suppression,
his films were being featured at foreign film festivals.
In 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to
resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various
Georgian intellectuals, he created the multi-award-winning film Legend
of Suram Fortress, based on a novella by Daniel Chonkadze, his first
return to cinema since Sayat Nova fifteen years earlier. In 1988,
Parajanov made another multi-award-winning film, Ashik Kerib, based on
a story by Mikhail Lermontov. Parajanov dedicated the film to his
close friend Andrei Tarkovsky and "to all the children of the world".
Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved
too monumental for his failing health. He died of cancer in Yerevan,
Armenia, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving this final work, The
Confession, unfinished. It survives in its original negative as
Parajanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail
Vartanov in 1992. Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi,
Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo
Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his death. A telegram
that came to Russia read"The world of cinema has lost a magician".
The Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010
to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei
Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov.