Three Homelands: A Sergei Parajanov Retrospective - The Color of Pomegranates

“Hakob Hovnatanyan,” 1967, Dir. Sergei Parajanov, 9 Min, Soviet Union

Made prior to the shooting of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, this short documentary for the Yerevan Newsreel-Documentary Film Studio depicts the work of 19th century Tblisi-based Armenian portrait painter Hakob Hovnatanyan. Parajanov is less concerned with a biographical precis and largely focuses on the artist’s luminous canvases which combine elements of illuminated manuscripts with European figurative art.

FORMAT: DCP

THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, 1969, Dir. Sergei Parajanov, 78 Min, Janus Films, Soviet Union

In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES revives the splendors of Armenian culture through the story of the eighteenth-century troubadour Sayat-Nova, charting his intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth through iconographic compositions rather than traditional narrative. The film’s tapestry of folklore and metaphor departed from the realism that dominated the Soviet cinema of its era, leading authorities to block its distribution, with rare underground screenings presenting it in a restructured form. This edition features the cut closest to Parajanov’s original vision, in a restoration that brings new life to one of cinema’s most enigmatic meditations on art and beauty.

FORMAT: DCP

Cost: $8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)