Daniel Bird on Sergei Parajanov

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/15/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-daniel-bird-on-sergei-parajanov/ We ask who is Parajanov and why Parajanov? We touch in the centrality of his work to the national and cultural identities of so many countries: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Russia; its aesthetic beauty and its continuing power. Certain filmmakers continuously crop up in relation to Parajanov's work -- Eisenstein, Jarman, Greenaway, Pasolini, Kenneth Anger, Powell and Pressburger. The conversation is bounded by the war in Ukraine; post-colonial relations; the excitement of cinema poetry, the need to archive, preserve, restore and circulate; questions of anarchy in totalitarian context; and a fluid line of different degrees of queerness that runs across Parajanov's oeuvre. Beautifully restored versions of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATES will be screened at Cinema Rediscovered, Watershed, Bristol on July 28th.