Цвет армянской земли (Հայոծ հողի գույնը) 15 minutes
In his censored and wordless 1969 documentary debut, which resulted in a 20 year blacklist, Mikhail Vartanov presents the ancient and the modern art of Armenia through the eyes of the country’s 90 year old master painter Martiros Saryan. We see biblical landscapes, ruins of temples, fading frescoes and the crumbling “khachkar” cross-stones in the countryside, but, in the subtle expressions of Saryan’s wrinkled face, we also feel his pride in the contemporary architecture and art of the capital Yerevan, where a new generation of modernist artists are taking Armenian culture into the future. They are: the filmmaker Parajanov (imprisoned in 1973), the sculptor Tchakmaktchian (exiled in 1974), and the painter Minas (assassinated in 1975).
In The Color of Armenian Land, Vartanov filmed the now world famous behind-the-scenes sequences of Sergei Parajanov at work on his landmark film Sayat Nova / The Color of Pomegranates. The future composer of The Color of Pomegranates, Tigran Mansurian, had first scored The Color of Armenian Land and became a frequent collaborator of Vartanov, writing music for his Autumn Pastoral (1971), And So Every Day (1972), and Awaiting (197?). Vartanov also filmed the artist Iosif Karalyan (Karalov), who was later the costume designer on The Color of Pomegranates.
It was especially the portrayal of the nonconformists Parajanov and Minas Avetisyan that caused The Color of Armenian Land to be shelved while Vartanov was blacklisted. When his artistic freedom was restored 20 years later, he responded with Minas: A Requiem (1989) and Paradjanov: The Last Spring (1992), completing a trilogy.
43 years after Vartanov filmed The Color of the Armenian Land it had its first public screening at one of the world’s largest and prestigious cinematic events, the Busan International Film Festival, during the first Parajanov/Vartanov film retrospective. Six years later, in 2018 — or 49 years after it was created — The Color of Armenian Land was released by Criterion on Blu-ray and the Criterion Channel with Parajanov’s restored Color of Pomegranates.
THE COLOUR OF ARMENIAN LAND – CAST & CREW:
Sergei Parajanov
Martiros Saryan
Minas Avetisian
Arto Tchakmaktchian
Hovsep Karalian (Iosif Karalov)
Robert Elibekian
Yervand Gojabashyan
Martin Petrosian
CREW:
Mikhail Vartanov (Writer/Dir/DP)
Tigran Mansuryan (Composer)
Komitas (Composer)
Karen Kurdiyan (Sound)
Հայկական հողի գույնը
Цвет армянской земли (фильм)
15 minutes
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute 
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