National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. presented Mikhail Vartanov’s Parajanov: The Last Spring with Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors on 03/08/25. Cinemateca Portuguesa/Museu do Cinema in Lisbon screened them on 03/21/25.
The lost 1952 student film by Parajanov (remade as Andriesh in 1954) has been found at Moscow’s Film Institute V.G.I.K.
2024
The (Oscars) Academy celebrated the centennial of the legendary filmmaker Sergei Parajanov at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles with the sold out world restoration premiere of Mikhail Vartanov’s acclaimed masterwork Parajanov: The Last Spring in 4K and Parajanov’s iconic masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates.
The Oslo Cinematheque presented Parajanov & Vartanov film retrospective Filmkunstens fantomer in Norway. It opened with Vartanov’s Parajanov: The Last Spring and was introduced by Martiros M. Vartanov (Boy With A Movie Camera), who also presented the screenings of Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Color of Pomegranates. Oslo Cinemateket also screened The Last Film, Our Turn, and The Resurrection of Sayat Nova.
The 37th IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam celebrated Parajanov’s 100th with the Dutch premiere of Mikhail Vartanov’s newly restored film Parajanov: The Last Spring. IDFA also hosted special screenings of Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates and Mikhail Vartanov’s The Last Spring, followed by an IDFA Talk with Martiros Vartanov, a member of the IDFA jury.
Museum of Moving Image in New York presented the best feature and documentary films by Parajanov and Vartanov, during the 100 Years of Parajanov retrospective, including The Color of Pomegranates and UCLA’s new 4K restoration of Parajanov: The Last Spring.
Cineteca di Bologna presented the Italian premiere of Mikhail Vartanov’s newly restored film Parajanov: The Last Spring on the opening evening of the 38th edition of the legendary Il Cinema Ritrovato Film Festival (in Pasolini’s birthplace).
UCLA & American Cinematheque presented the restorations of Mikhail Vartanov‘s Parajanov: The Last Spring and Sergei Parajanov‘s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles. The event included a Q&A between films with Martiros M. Vartanov (Parajanov-Vartanov Institute).
2024 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Meryl Streep whose film Escape From Extinction: Rewilding was presented at the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
2023
The 2023 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Pierce Brosnan whose film So Many Dreams opened the institute’s DOC LA Documentary Film Festival.
2022
The 2022 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Werner Herzog whose film The Fire Within had its LA premiere at the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival in October.
Parajanov‘s masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates, hailed as revolutionary by Vartanov in 1969, was on the 2022 BFI Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time (once in a decade) poll (published December).
2021
Suren Parajanov (10 November 1958 – 28 September 2021)
Farewell, Suren, son of Parajanov. You will embrace our fathers.
The 2021 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges whose film The Beast of Our Time was presented at DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
2020
The Copenhagen Cinematheque presented the Paradjanov and Vartanov film retrospective 2-22 January 2020 and a special Q&A with Martiros M. Vartanov (Boy with a Movie Camera) on January 22.
The National Gallery of Armenia – for the first time in 51 years there – screened Vartanov‘s debut The Color of Armenian Land starring Parajanov. Martiros M. Vartanov (Boy with a Movie Camera) introduced the February 25 screening at The Hall of Frescoes.
Sergei Parajanov‘s widow Svetlana Shcherbatiuk (Светлана Щербатюк) passed away on June 6, 2020, in Kyiv, Ukraine, five days after the passing of Myroslav Skoryk, the composer of Parajanov’s 1964 masterpiece Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
A new music video for Lady Gaga‘s song 911 was inspired by Sergei Parajanov‘s masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates. W Magazine report here.
Armenia was attacked in September by Azerbaijan and Turkey in a genocidal war that destroyed Armenian churches adored by Parajanov and bombed the Armenian people of Artsakh.
The 2020 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren whose film Escape from Extinction was an official selection of the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
2019
The films by Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov, The Color of Pomegranates (1969) and The Color of Armenian Land (1969), as well as Martiros Vartanov’s first film, The Last Film, dedicated to them, had their streaming premieres on the newly launched Criterion Channel in April.
The 2019 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett whose film Stuart X had its international premiere at the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival in Hollywood in October.
A terrible fire in November at Parajanov’s family apartment in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine damaged their personal Parajanov archive and left Svetlana Parajanov and son Suren Parajanov with no permanent place to live.
2018
The Criterion Collection released the long-awaited Blu-ray/DVD of Sergei Paradjanov‘s restored Color of Pomegranates with Mikhail Vartanov‘s rarely seen 1969 debut The Color of Armenian Land, and Martiros Vartanov’s The Last Film dedicated to them.
Martiros M. Vartanov was invited by LACMA Los Angeles Country Museum of Art to present the screening of The Color of Pomegranates with the work in progress cut of his new film The Resurrection of Sayat Nova, featuring Martin Scorsese and Olivia Harrison.
The 2018 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon whose film American Mirror had its world premiere at the institute’s DOC LA, Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute worked with The Film Foundation and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) to ensure that The Met would cancel their (January 11, 2019) screening of The Color of Pomegranates (with live performance by M. Kouyoumdjian). The event was consequently canceled. From the statement by the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute: “While Parajanov continues to inspire people around the world, it is important to respect his vision and understand that The Color of Pomegranates is not a silent film – the soundtrack is an indelible part of his masterpiece and cannot be replaced”.
2017
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute worked with The Film Foundation to ensure that Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova) would be screened at The Cinefamily with its 1969 original soundtrack as Parajanov intended it. The screening on 22 February 2017 at Cinefamily/Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles that was originally advertised with Nicolas Jaar’s “alternative soundtrack” didn’t take place, and instead the restored version was shown.
The 2017 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard whose film Girl and Typhoons had its LA premiere at the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival in Hollywood.
2016
The 2016 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson whose film To the Ends of the Earth had its US premiere at the institute’s DOC LA Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
2015
Francis Ford Coppola congratulated the 2015 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award recipients, Grammy-winning rock band System Of A Down for their commitment to justice, exemplified by this year’s historic world tour Wake Up the Souls. The event at Chateau Marmont Hollywood on 21 October 2015 benefited Parajanov: The Last Spring film trilogy restoration at UCLA.
“I would like to extend my congratulations to System Of A Down on being honored for their commitment to justice with the 2015 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award, in memory of filmmakers Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov, whose work I greatly admire. I am also pleased to hear of the band’s unique gesture to help restore Mikhail Vartanov’s film Parajanov: The Last Spring, which was created under prohibitive conditions and yet exemplifies the power of art over any limitations. I would strongly encourage others to unite around this significant endeavor.”
—FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
“I would like to express my gratitude to the band System of a Down who share my commitment to justice and to making people aware, through art, of atrocities visited by people upon each other. I wholeheartedly support the restoration of Mikhail Vartanov’s “Parajanov: The Last Spring.” We have to make sure that the work of seminal artists like Mikhail Vartanov is preserved, promoted and accessible to the widest possible audience. His films, made against all odds and under the harshest conditions and repression, are crucial to the important heritage of world cinema.”
—AGNIESZKA HOLLAND
film director, AMPAS member, Chairwoman of European Film Academy
2014
Martin Scorsese accepted the 2014 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award for the restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova) and introduced the masterpiece on October 2nd at the 52nd New York Film Festival. The world premiere of the restored film was at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the Italian premiere with Mikhail Vartanov’s Parajanov: The Last Spring was at the 28th Il Cinema Ritrovato Film Festival in June, and the North American premiere was at TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival. The US premiere was hosted in Los Angeles by the Academy of Motion Pictures (AMPAS) at The Academy® at LACMA series on September 20 with The Last Film by Martiros Vartanov, the founder of the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute, who worked with Cineteca di Bologna’s lab L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project on the restoration. Other screenings included BFI London Film Festival, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Yerevan Film Festival in July, and Haifa Film Festival in Israel in October.
2013
2013 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning author William Saroyan, and was presented to his granddaughter Cream Kate Saroyan by Academy Award winning Hollywood actor Jon Voight.
2012
Parajanov/Vartanov film retrospective and art exhibition took place at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival in South Korea in October. In April, the legendary screenwriter Mardik Martin (Mean Streets, Raging Bull) was honored with the 2012 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award.
2011
2011 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored French cinema icon Jean Vigo and was presented to his daughter Luce Vigo, a Paris based film critic. Oscar-winning master Martin Scorsese sent a letter for the occasion with words about Jean Vigo, Parajanov and Vartanov.
2010
Parajanov and Vartanov families came together in Hollywood for the inauguration of the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute to champion the legacy of the “brothers-in-arts” Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937-2009). Vartanov’s Parajanov: The Last Spring was presented for the occasion, concurrently with Martiros Vartanov’s photo exhibition, I Will Wear Your Beret Papa, and a classical music concert, at UCLA.
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute 
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