Georgian-Armenian-Ukrainian filmmaker and artist Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) left a singular, enigmatic and unclassifiable body of work, mainly produced in the sixties and in the eighties in the Soviet context. Known for his poetic cinema, his idiosyncratic approach to art and for his creative adaptation of the literary and material cultures of the Caucasus, he has not only invented a new language of cinema but also a transgressive poetics and aesthetics that resists easy national and style classification.

As the year 2024 closes out the centennial celebration of his birth, this conference stresses the audiovisual and artistic intersections of Transcaucasian cultures in the current troubled context of these regions, taking the opportunity to explore the multiple directions, discussions and inspirations that draw from Parajanov’s work in the present day. This one-day conference thereby re-examines the multifaceted world of Parajanov by addressing a wide range of diNerent topics and questions such as filmic sound, the mystical, material objects and fashion, archiving and preserving films, and the ways these works are presented and circulated in film festivals.

Programme:

14:00: Welcome & short introduction

14:15-15:45:

Tina BASTAJIAN (Sandberg Institute)— “Sonic Gestures: Listening to Parajanov’s Tableaux”

Marie-Aude BARONIAN (University of Amsterdam)— “Fashioning a World of Material Objects”

Amir VUDKA (University of Amsterdam)—“Parajanov the Eclectic Mystic”

16:15-17:45:

Daniel BIRD (The Hamo Bek-Nazarov Project) — “Towards a Cinemadaran: The Preservation and Restoration of Parajanov’s Filmography”

Floris PAALMAN (University of Amsterdam)—“Tracing Parajanov: Manifestation and Reception”

David BARONIAN (visual artist)— “Freedom Inside: Parajanov’s Time in Prison”