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The Color of Pomegranates by Parajanov, in my opinion one of the best contemporary film directors, astonishes with its perfection of beauty…
—Michelangelo Antonioni
Mikhail Vartanov’s film Parajanov: The Last Spring…was created under prohibitive conditions and yet exemplifies the power of art over any limitations.
—Francis Ford Coppola
With the death of Parajanov, cinema lost one of its magicians. Parajanov’s fantasy will forever fascinate and bring joy to the people of the world…
—Federico Fellini
—Tonino Guerra
—Giulietta Masina
—Francesco Rosi
—Alberto Moravia
—Marcello Mastroianni
—Bernardo Bertolucci
In the temple of cinema there are images, light and reality. Sergei Paradjanov was the master of that temple…
—Jean-Luc Godard
Always with huge gratitude and pleasure I remember the films of Sergei Parajanov, which I love very much. His way of thinking, his paradoxical poetical… ability to love the beauty and ability to be absolutely free within his own vision.
—Andrei Tarkovsky
Probably, besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein… cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until (Parajanov’s) “Color of Pomegranates”
—Mikhail Vartanov
Vartanov… brother-in-arts…You possess everything an artist needs – mind, kindness, principles, freedom. Create… Perhaps, you’re the only friend, who compels me to live.
—Sergei Paradjanov
Mikhail Vartanov…made a wonderful film Parajanov: The Last Spring…
—Martin Scorsese
Vartanov’s film, Parajanov: The Last Spring, about the last days of our great Parajanov, excited and filled me with the strength to resume the way of the magnificent tale that the Maestro had taken.
—Tonino Guerra
“My dear friend (Vartanov)…should you like the (screenplay) “Desert,” together we could make a masterpiece…”
—Artavazd Peleshian
“We have to ensure that the work of seminal artists like Vartanov is preserved…his films…made under the harshest conditions…are crucial to the important heritage of world cinema.”
— Agnieszka Holland
“Vartanov…the Eyemoman…”
—William Saroyan
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute 