Yakov Bazelyan & Sergei Parajanov - Andriesh (1954)

A major foreshadowing of Paradjanov’s later work, the visually prodigious Andriesh is an entertaining tale about a young shepherd who is given a magic shawm (a flutelike instrument) to help him conquer his foes. With its flying sheep, evil wizards, and storm demons—all captured in the gloriously artifical palette of fifties Soviet color stock—Andriesh has the kind of eye-popping, whirlwind weirdness of Paradjanov’s last films, Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib.

Sergei Parajanov - Ukrainskaya rapsodiya aka Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961)

Quote:
"Ukrainskaya Rapsodiya" (the USSR, 1961) of Sergueï Paradjanov is a film saga of oceanic proportion with many rivers flowing into it. The characters are the affluents which mix in and distinguish themselves within the furrows of the storyline. An ocean of images but of musics too. Cause the film evolves more by its musical quality, then by its narration.

Orksana, talented student at the Ukrainian Academy likes Antonin whom she met in her youth. Here the love is less tumultuous in retrospect to "Pervyy Paren" (USSR, 1958) of the same Paradjanov, even if a certain formal expression of it remain. In this third feature of the Armenian filmmaker; the Second World war, one of the rare History adaptations of Paradjanov, come to disturb the peaceful flow. "Ukrainskaya Rapsodiya" thus enter in a powerful melody, the railroads, industrial symbols of the river, cross in several plans, as if to illustrate the opulence of the livings.

Levon Grigoryan - Andrei Tarkovsky & Sergei Parajanov - Islands (1988)

Description: A 40 minute documentary discussing the friendship of Tarkovsky and Parajanov and their contrasting filmmaking styles and personalities, including interviews with friends and associates.

Sergei Parajanov - Tsvetok na kamne AKA A Little Flower on a Stone (1962)

Description: Full of arresting chiaroscuro images, Paradjanov's only monochrome film plays like a noir thriller. Set in a mining town in the Donets Basin, it centres on a clash (allegorical?) between the political establishment and a religious cult which infiltrates the community. With critic Ron Holloway's Paradjanov: A Requiem (Germany 1994, 59min): a lengthy 1988 interview with Paradjanov frames clips from all the films and samples of his drawings and designs.

(http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/node/14484)

Sergei Parajanov - I am Sergei Parajanov! (1990)

Synopsis:
I am Sergei Parajanov! shot a few months after Parajanov's death. Features archive photographs, his collages, the clips from Sayat-Nova (1968), Ashik Kerib (1988), the making of The Legend of the Surami Fortress (1984) and a few views of the house he lived.

Ron Holloway - Paradjanov: A Requiem (1994)

The film shows the unique world of artist Sergei Parajanov, whose brilliant images in films and collages aroused the suspicion of Soviet authorities. Unexpectedly, this last all-embracing interview, given at the 1988 München Film Festival, has become a film legacy.

Sergei Parajanov was born an Armenian in Georgia. He studied at the Moscow Film School and worked as a director in the Ukraine. His stylistic vitality and “plasticism” - a term he used to describe his films - enabled him to creative universal images.

Sergei Parajanov - Kiev Frescos (1966)

LINK

A lyrical portrait of life in a contemporary Armenian village following the devastation of an earthquake and the fall of communism.

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Kievski Freski Dir Sergei Paradjanov (Kiev Frescos) 1966. 35mm. 13 mins
Paradjanov assembled this "film collage" from the rushes and tests that remained unscathed after the Soviet authorities halted the production of Kiev Frescos and ordered the negative to be destroyed.

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When the Soviet authorities were imposing on a multi-national country the artificial conception of a "homogeneous Soviet people", Paradjanov was defending those nations' very diversity and uniqueness. Through films and documentaries (both by Paradjanov and others), this programme attempts to trace Paradjanov's creative journeys through Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia.

Soon after the Soviet authorities stopped the shooting of Kiev Frescos (Kievski Freski) in 1966, Sergei Paradjanov left Dovchenko film studios in Kiev for Armenfilm in Yerevan. There he started work on a feature length homage to Sayat Nova, the pseudonym of the Haroutine Sayadian (Tblissi, 1712 - 1795), an Armenian poet and bard, who wrote in Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani.

Sergei Parajanov - Pervyy paren aka The First Lad (1959)

A gem from Paradjanov's early oeuvre is a musical agitation film or a romantic comedy, made by the young director under the guidance of Alexander Dovzhenko and set in the immense fields of the collectivised Ukraine. The social realism is replaced by colourful, convivial and dancing shots of the “Pabieda” (Victory) kolkhoz, where peasant women sing in the fields, and boys march with banners glorifying revolution. Against this backdrop, intense romantic feelings have reached a climactic stage; tailor Sidor Sidorovich, farmer Jushka and soldier Danila Petrovich all dote on the fair-haired Odarka. It is Jushka and Danila who engage in overt hostility; the initial “gentlemen’s” contest turns into an outright confrontation, resulting in miserable Jushka being increasingly more desperate and scorned by the villagers.

Sergei Parajanov - Ashugi Qaribi aka The Hoary Legends of the Caucasus (1988)

Based on a story by Russian author Mikhail Lermontov, Ashik Kerib has the texture of an ancient, oft-told tale. Yuri Mgoyan stars as a wandering troubadour, working the provinces. He spends 1000 days and nights on the road, entertaining whenever and wherever he can. Mgoyan's itinerant lifestyle seemingly has little purpose, but it does. At the end of those 1000 days and nights, he hopes to have accumulated enough money to afford a wedding...if his bride is willing to wait.

Sergei Parajanov - Tini zabutykh predkiv aka Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964)

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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors has often been described as a Carpathian Romeo and Juliet - that is, if Romeo had the tenacity to live after his beloved's death. Sergei Paradjanov prefaces the tragic tale set in the Carpathian mountains as the land "forgotten by God and men", and from the austerity of the environment, it is evident that survival comes at a high price. In essence, the story is incidental to the observations of daily peasant life: the Orthodox order of mass, the rites of spring, the rhythm of the sickle cutting the fields.

Sergei Parajanov - Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa (Легенда о Сурамской крепости) AKA The Legend of Suram Fortress (1984)

Parajanov was born in 1924 (..) In 1964, Parajanov stunned critics and audiences with "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", a baroque and free-wheeling adaptation of Romeo and Juliet-like Carpathian folklore involving two lovers separated by quarreling families and their tragic fates amid everyday village life and religious ritual. Visually stunning (the opening sequence involves the camera riding atop a falling tree), it was condemned for its brash formalism in a time when Kruschev had attacked abstract art, bringing an end to the post-Stalinist cultural "thaw" of the late-'50s and early '60s. The film was quickly removed from Soviet screens and precipitated Parajanov's extended battles with Soviet authorities. Kiev Frescos was cancelled mid-shoot because of its "bourgeois subjectivism and mysticism" (Ackerman) and Sayat-Nova (The Color of Pomegranates) (1969) was immediately banned and later released in a drastically re-edited form.

Sergei Parajanov - Sayat Nova aka The Color of Pomegranates (1968)

Quote:
The work of painter, musician, mystic and filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov (1924-1990) constantly defies categorisation. His films are notable for their lyrical inspiration and great aesthetic beauty, but riled the Soviet authorities to such an extent that Paradjanov faced constant harrassment throughout his life. Like his earlier film, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1965), The Colour of Pomegranates was banned...
Ostensibly a biopic of rebellious 18th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova, The Colour of Pomegranates follows the poet's path from his childhood wool-dying days to his role as a courtier and finally his life as a monk. But Armenian director Sergei Paradjanov warns us from the start that this is no ordinary biopic: "This is not a true biography," he has his narrator state during the opening credits.