Sergei Parajanov
Soviet film director
Died when: 66 years 192 days (798 months)Star Sign: Capricorn
Sergei Parajanov (Armenian: ?????? ?????????;Russian: ?????? ????????? ??????????;Georgian: ????? ??????????;Ukrainian: ?????? ????????? ??????????; sometimes spelled Paradzhanov or Paradjanov;January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Georgian film director of Armenian origin, screenwriter and artist who made seminal contribution to world cinema with his films Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Color of Pomegranates.
Parajanov is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers to be one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in cinema history.
He invented his own cinematic style, which was out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism; the only sanctioned art style in the USSR.
This, combined with his lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his films.
Despite this, Parajanov was named one of the 20 Film Directors of the Future by the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and his films were ranked among the greatest films of all time by the British Film Institute's magazine Sight & Sound.
Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later disowned all the films he made before 1965 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 USSR.
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 on false charges of rape, homosexuality and bribery.
He was imprisoned until 1977, despite 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 after 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 a 1988 interview he stated that, "Everyone knows that I have three Motherlands.I was born in Georgia, worked in Ukraine and I'm going to die in Armenia." Parajanov is buried at Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan.
Parajanov's films won prizes at Mar del Plata Film Festival, Istanbul International Film Festival, Nika Awards, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival and others.
A comprehensive retrospective in the UK took place in 2010 at BFI Southbank.The retrospective was curated by Layla Alexander-Garrett and Parajanov specialist Elisabetta Fabrizi who commissioned a Parajanov-inspired new commission in the BFI Gallery by contemporary artist Matt Collishaw ('Retrospectre').
A symposium was dedicated to Paradjanov's work bringing together experts to discuss and celebrate the director's contribution to cinema and art.
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