PARADZHANOV EXHIBITION IN ST. PETERSBURG

22:27

MOSCOW, May 18 (RIA Novosti) – A Web site featuring museum exhibitions
in Russia () announced the opening of an art exhibition
on prominent Armenian filmmaker Sergei Paradzhanov (1924-1990) in
the St. Petersburg State Ethnography Museum on June 8.

The exhibition features 60 drawings, collages, hats, and dolls from
the Paradzhanov Museum in Yerevan.

Paradzhanov was born to an Armenian family in Tbilisi. He graduated
from the Cinematography Institute in Moscow. He was hailed as one
of the world’s best directors for his movies Shadows of Forgotten
Ancestors (1964) and Color of the Pomegranate (1969). He won over
30 awards at international film festivals, including Mar del Plata
(1964), Tel Aviv, Munich, Constantinople, and Moscow.

Paradzhanov wrote a number of interesting scripts that were rejected
by Communist Party leaders, while the filmmaker suffered under the
cruelty of the Soviet system. He was not allowed to shoot movies for
15 years. In 1973 he was arrested on fabricated charges and spent
five years in prison. Despite these circumstances, he continued to
create works of art. For example, he made figurines from bread and
sent them to his friends.

Famous cultural figures, including Lilya Brik, the wife of the
great proletarian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, campaigned for his early
release. Paradzhanov was set free a year earlier in 1977.