Aleksandr Zarkhi - Anna Karenina (1967)

After several previous attempts by foreign directors who miss the mark, this Russian film version of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel Anna Karenina most accurately follows the Tolstoy novel and remains superior to all other versions to date. It concerns the struggle of a woman to find her place in Russian society. Anna (Tatiana Samoilova) is shunned by society when she leaves her older husband and small son for the dashing young cavalry officer Vronsky (Vassili Lanovai). The officer is torn between his love for Anna and his social and military responsibilities. Bolshoi ballet star Maia Plisetskaya is the noble Princess who at first helps Anna, then turns her back on her. Anna is caught between the worlds of high society and privilege and the downtrodden peasants who are victimized by the economic elite. She tries desperately to follow her heart as she is harshly judged by society for trying to find her place.

Sergei Parajanov - Ukrainskaya rapsodiya aka Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961)

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"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)

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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.