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Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
The Flower on the Stone
Ukraine, 1962
A coal mining village built by the sheer sweat and muscle of the Ukrainian people arises in Donbass, bringing with it conflict between a charismatic Pentecostal priest, one of his most devout parishioners and a charismatic hooligan. Sergei Parajanov was brought on to complete the film after its initial director — Anatoli Slesarenko — was fired for endangering the life of leading lady Inna Burduchenko-Kiriliuk while shooting a scene involving a building on fire. The finished film boasts striking chiaroscuro compositions, silhouetted figures against the endless Donetsk steppe, that evoke the monumental cinematography of Mikhail Kalatozov. The film’s title refers to a flower fossilized in a rock, a fitting symbol for nature’s transformational perseverance.
DCP, b&w, in Russian with English subtitles, 73 min. Director: Sergei Parajanov. Screenwriter: Vadim Sobko. With: Boris Dmokhovsky, Grigori Karpov, Inna Burduchenko-Kiriliuk.
Golden Hands
Ukraine, 1960
Parajanov’s passion for all manner of folk art is fully explored in this vibrant short documentary, an impassioned homage to the wide variety of creative traditions from throughout Ukrainian. Works in ceramics, painting, glass and ornaments — a “lively variety of colors and forms” — are exhibited, with Parajanov being particularly attentive to the ways these rough-hewn works by serfs and peasants reflect scenes and figures of everyday life.
DCP, color, in Russian with English subtitles, 35 min. Directors: Alexander Nikolenko, Alexei Pankaratiev, Sergei Parajanov. Screenwriter: Ivan Kornienko. With: Boris Dmokhovsky, Grigori Karpov, Inna Burduchenko-Kiriliuk.
Kyiv Frescoes
Ukraine, 1965
After the artistic breakthrough of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Parajanov developed a follow-up honoring the 20th anniversary of World War II (or the Great Patriotic War as it was known in the USSR). Though a scenario and shooting were completed, the only footage that was shot are a few camera tests. Foreshadowing the stylistic pivot of 1969’s The Color of Pomegranates, Kyiv Frescoes is comprised of arcane tableaus decorated with enigmatic symbols — a flaming flatiron atop birch branches — and activated by the ritualized movements of impassive performers. “Only in ballet do we see pure beauty, pure pantomime,” Parajanov once said and the expressive gestural work of his actors in Kyiv Frescoes point the way to the baroquely choreographed performances that will appear in his subsequent films.
DCP, color, no dialogue, 13 min. Director: Sergei Parajanov. Screenwriters: Sergei Parajanov, Pavlo Zahrebelnyi. With: Tengiz Archadze, Via Artame, Afanasi Kochetkov.
