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Documentary oeuvre of Mikhail Vartanov began with the wordless Color of Armenian Land (1968) featuring the world famous behind-the-scenes episodes of Sergei Paradjanov's landmark Sayat Nova (1968). Vartanov's correspondence with the imprisoned Paradjanov and the criticism of Armenia's corrupt film industry resulted in a blacklist shortly thereafter. Vartanov's screenplays and films were suppressed, unmentioned by press and blocked from submission to foreign film festivals.

In those years Vartanov exquisitely lensed Artavazd Peleshian's classic Seasons of the Year (1975) and Gennadi Melkonian's hit The Mulberry Tree (1979).

In 1980s, Vartanov's writings were published in several countries including Cahiers du Cinema in Paris, France.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vartanov directed the trilogy Erased Faces (1987), Minas: A Requiem (1989) and his masterpiece Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) - a staggering drama about the man whom the regime persecuted but who stood his ground and triumphed...

The following decade Vartanov spent conducting film and photo experiments in his Hollywood apartment to be seen in Erased Faces II by Martin Vartanov with whom he is producing Evrika, a film based on a method they call "direction of the undirected action."

As for the films Vartanov made between 1960s and 1989, they have not been shown to the general public and remain in the Armenian archives mostly under the control of his suppressors and their often unsuspecting or indifferent sympathizers.


 COLOR OF ARMENIAN LAND (1968)

 AUTUMN PASTORAL (1971)

 AND SO EVERY DAY (1972)




KAJARAN (1974) fired


 cinematographer SEASONS OF THE YEAR (1975)

 cinematographer WILLIAM SAROYAN (1977) 

 cinematographer THE MULBERRY TREE (1979) 

 
ROOTS (1984)


OUR ALEXAN  (1985)


HE CREATES HOMELAND (1985)


 ERASED FACES (1987) 

 IN THIS STONE IS MY SOUL (1989)

 MINAS: A REQUIEM (1989) 

 PARAJANOV: THE LAST SPRING (1992) 
 


ERASED FACES II  (work in progress) 
 


EVRIKA (announced) 


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