• The Color of Pomegranates

  • Hakob Hovnatanyan

  • Kyiv Frescoes

A limited number of wheelchair accessible spaces may still be available for this screening. Please contact bampfa@berkeley.edu if you would like a ticket for a wheelchair accessible space.



The Color of Pomegranates

(Sayat Nova)
(Red Pomegranates)

Sergei Parajanov
USSR, 1969

Digital Restoration

featuring

Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan,

Sergei Parajanov’s paean to his Armenian heritage is an exotic mosaic of the mystical and historical that achieves a surreal effect. In tracing the life of the great eighteenth-century Armenian poet and monk Sayat Nova through his writings, Parajanov weaves a metaphorical short history of the Armenian nation, telling of Turkish genocide, Persian invasions, and a vast migration to the Russian section of the country in the early twentieth century, all through daringly symbolic imagery. The film is an extraordinary artistic rendering of ceremony and ritual, architecture, iconography, and period music that, even for the uninitiated, works its extraordinary magic.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Sergei Parajanov
  • Suren Shakhbazyan
Based On

  • the writings of Sayat Nova

Language
  • Armenian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 78 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
Additional Info
  • Restored by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, in association with the National Cinema Centre of Armenia and Gosfilmofond of Russia. Restoration funded by the Material World Charitable Foundation.
Preceded By

Kyiv Frescoes

Sergei Parajanov, USSR, 1966

A highly symbolic film reflecting on post–World War II Kyiv.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 15 mins
source
  • Dovzhenko Film Studios

Hakob Hovnatanyan

Sergei Parajanov, USSR, 1967

A tribute to the art of the nineteenth-century Armenian painter.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 10 mins
permission
  • National Cinema Center of Armenia

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.