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“In the temple of cinema there are images, light and reality. Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple.”—Jean-Luc Godard
Born on January 9, 1924, to an Armenian family in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the final years of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Sergei Parajanov studied voice at the Tbilisi State Conservatory before transitioning to cinema at the All-Union State Film School in Moscow. Subsequently employed by the Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv, he joined the Thaw Generation of post-Stalinist filmmakers, writers and artists who pushed Socialist Realism to new forms of creativity and expression.
Parajanov’s body of work can be easily bifurcated into two periods — his more sober Ukrainian films, most of them rarely screened in the United States and his internationally recognized masterpieces produced across the Caucasus region between stints of state-imposed persecution and incarceration. Deeply knowledgeable of the rich traditions and cultures throughout Caucasia, Parajanov reimagined cinema as a vibrant fusing of movement, myth, music, ritual and folk arts. His approach was inclusive and open to diverse influences. At once both archaic and modernist, Parajanov’s cinema proudly stood out of time and beyond borders.
“Everybody knows that I have three motherlands,” the filmmaker once claimed. During his centennial year of 2024, Parajanov has been commemorated in Georgia and Armenia and received UNESCO recognition. Due to obvious challenges, Ukraine has been unable to hold any Parajanov festivities. We believe this film series, the filmmaker’s most comprehensive centennial retrospective, will help honor his Ukrainian legacy. Featuring a new restoration and scans from original camera negatives, Three Homelands offers a complete look at one of cinema’s true visionaries.
Series guest programmed and notes by Bernardo Rondeau.
Special thanks to our collaborators and partners: Daniel Bird, Cecilia Cenciarelli (Cineteca di Bologna), Olena Honcharuk (Dovzhenko Centre), Zaza Abashidze, Georgian Film, Cinema Foundation of Armenia.
Special thanks to our community partners: Armenian Film Society, GALAS LGBTQ+ Armenian Society, Queer Film LA, Parajanov-Vartanov Institute, The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies, South East European Film Festival, Ukrainian Art Center.
