Screenings
August 29 14:00
H. TUMANYAN HOUSE-MUSEUM (DSEGH)
Kyiv Frescoes
Ukrainian SSR, 1966, 14’
Director: Sergei Parajanov
Scriptwriters: Pavel Zagrebalny, Sergei Parajanov
Cinematographer: Aleksandr Antipenko
Kyiv Frescos was supposed to be the ingenious director’s next film after the success of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors a meditation on the mentality of generations during and after the Second World War. However, Parajanov was able to do only a few test shoots before the Dovzhenko Film Studio shot down the production in 1966 and ordered the negatives to be burned. Luckily, cinematographer Aleksandr Antipenko was able to save around 14 minutes of the film, and even what is essentially test footage unequivocally demonstrates what a truly innovative film this could have been. Parajanov later cemented this unique cinematic language in his ultimate masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates.