IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE FRENCH CINEMATHEQUE
Film by Serguei Paradjanov (1969)
1h19
With Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekian, Vilen Galustian, Georgi Gegechkori
“I must say two words about the story of “Sayat Nova”. Otherwise, they will blame me. «Sayat Nova» tells in some edifying pictures the life of a famous poet-troubadour who is called, precisely, Sayat Nova. He is first seen as a child, then as a young poet at the court of the king of Georgia, and then as a monk retired in a convent. He dies during the sack of Tiflis. It’s 1795.” Serge Daney
Born to Armenian parents in 1924, Sarkis Yossifovich Paradjanian began studies in engineering and then in singing and violin before entering VGIK, the Moscow Film School in 1946. He graduated in directing under the direction of Ukrainian directors Igor Savtchenko and Alexander Dovjenko and began working at the Kiev Studios. In 1964, The Horses of Fire, his ninth film, caused a scandal because he deconstructed one by one the principles of socialist realism of Soviet cinema. Despite the worldwide recognition of Sayat Nova in the 1970s, Paradjanov will have increasing difficulties to make another film. After several years under surveillance, he was arrested in Kiev in 1973 and sentenced to five years imprisonment in a camp for his political opinions and homosexuality in 1974. This decision is strongly contested internationally. Paradjanov receives many supporters from friends, intellectuals and artists around the world. In 1978, he was released and allowed to return to Tbilisi, but banned from working in the film studios. In February 1982, he was arrested again and imprisoned for one year. It was not until 1985 that he managed to make The Legend of the Fortress of Souram. In 1989, he began shooting an autobiographical film called Confession but his health forced the interruption of filming and Paradjanov died the following year in Yerevan at the age of 66.