THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, 1985, Dir. Sergei Parajanov, 89 Min, Georgian Film, Soviet Union

In Georgian with English subtitles.

Parajanov spent the majority of the 1970s and early 1980s incarcerated. Imprisoned twice by Soviet authorities for crimes of homosexuality (the filmmaker was bi-sexual) as well as fabricated charges, Parajanov found support from filmmakers across the film world: Antonioni, Bertolucci, Demy, Fellini, Godard, Leone, Pasolini, Rivette, Rossellini, Tati, Truffaut, , Varda , and Visconti among other publicly called for his release. But it took a direct appeal from Surrealist poet Louis Aragon to Brezhnev for Parajanov’s release from his first stint across several “strict regime” labor colonies. No longer allowed to reside in Kyiv, Parajanov returned to his family home in Tblisi and was subsequently offered an opportunity to direct by Georgia Film Studio. Adapting a formative Georgian folktale about the repeated attempts to build a redoubt in the country’s hilly Shida Kartli region, Parajanov’s film is another sumptuously textured opus. Infused with Turkish and Persian motifs, the film’s tale of prophecy and sacrifice unspools across ravishing ellipses.  

FORMAT: DCP

“Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani,” 1985, Dir. Sergei Parajanov, 20 Min, Soviet Union

In Russian and Georgian with English subtitles.

Commissioned by the Georgian Studio of Popular-Science and Documentary Films, Parajanov’s meditation on self-taught Georgian folk painter Niko Pirosmani also evokes the cosmopolitan atmosphere of early 20th century Tblisi.

FORMAT: DCP

Cost: $8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)