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The Color of Pomegranates
Program
The Color of Pomegranates

The Color of Pomegranates

Sergei Parajanov
Soviet Union
1969
79 min
Special Screenings
Tickets & Times
Synopsis

More than half a century after its first screening, The Color of Pomegranates, about the life of the 18th-century Armenian poet and minstrel Sayat-Nova, remains a unique work of visual poetry. Although the term biographical film falls hopelessly short, this is nevertheless perhaps the ultimate biographical film. It's not a film that reduces a life to a series of facts and milestones, but captures it in a patchwork of impressions—in images, lines of poetry and music. And in fragments of folklore, history and religion, which combine to form the roots of an existence.

Sergei Parajanov (Jean-Luc Godard once described him as the “master of the temple” of cinema) captures these impressions in tableaux vivants inspired by traditional Armenian and Persian miniatures, which interweave abstract symbolism with a wealth of texture, movement and color. Books drying in the sun, wool dyed in the colors of the national flag, the “blood” flowing from a pomegranate.

Parajanov’s visual poetry failed to please the Soviet censors—they deemed it to be insufficiently “educational”—but it has enchanted generations of film lovers ever since its first release.

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Tickets & Times
Fri, november 15
Free with Cineville. More info at idfa.nl/cineville
14:00 – 15:23
Eye: Cinema 2
Film fully subtitled in English

Tue, november 19
Preceded by the short film The Resurrection of Sayat Nova by Martiros Vartanov.
13:15 – 14:54
Tuschinski 4
Film fully subtitled in English
Credits
79 min
color
DCP
Spoken languages: Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian
Director
    Sergei Parajanov
    Sergei Parajanov
Cinematography
    Suren Shakhbazyan
    Suren Shakhbazyan
Editing
    Sergei Parajanov,
    Sergei Yutkevich,
    M. Ponomarenko
    Sergei Parajanov,
    Sergei Yutkevich,
    M. Ponomarenko
Music
    Tigran Mansuryan
    Tigran Mansuryan
Screenplay
    Sergei Parajanov,
    Sayat Nova
    Sergei Parajanov,
    Sayat Nova
Narrator
    Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
    Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
World Sales
    World Cinema Project
    World Cinema Project
Screening copy
    Cineteca di Bologna
    Cineteca di Bologna

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