Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Jon Voight presented the 2011 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honoring French film icon Jean Vigo (1905-1934) to his daugher and Paris-based film critic Luce Vigo at Beverly Hills Film Festival awards held at Four Seasons Hotel on April 10, 2011.

Oscar-winning film director Martin Scorsese sent a letter to the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute for the occassion of the institute's Jean Vigo retrospective with words on Vigo, Sergei Paradjanov and Mikhail Vartanov, all of whom were non-conformists, struggled with censorship, left a brief filmography, remain underrated yet highly revered by the leading international intelligentsia, media, and cineastes.

Once in a lifetime opportunity in Hollywood to meet Luce Vigo, Paris based film critic and daughter of iconic French film director Jean Vigo (1905-1934).

Luce Vigo will accept the 2011 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honoring Jean Vigo and speak about her father at UCLA -- James Bridges Theater -- Melnitz Hall -- Sunday, April 10, 2011 -- 3:00pm. Jean Vigo's masterpieces have been rated among the Top 10 films of all time, and influeced numerous future masters of cinema.

Experience Jean Vigo in rare 35mm projections -- Zero for Conduct (1933) and L'Atalante (1934).

Free admission.

Special thanks to:

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
UCLA Film and Television Archive
Beverly Hills Film Festival
ColCoa French Film Festival
French Embassy's Los Angeles Film and Television Office.

RSVP on Facebook here

Legendary director Sergei Paradjanov is in good company in a book titled 501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers. The book, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, has 640 pages and is available here.

Tonino Guerra, who admired the work of Paradjanov and Vartanov, received the Jean Renoir Award of the Writer's Guild of America, West on February 5, 2011 for writing the screenplays of some of the world's greatest movies such as Fellini's Amarcord and Antonioni's Blowup.

Parajanov is with the Wild Bunch - the 50 Mad, Bad and Dangerous directors along with Fellini, David Lynch and Lars von Trier, courtesy of the Sight and Sound in UK. The picture was obviously inspired by Sgt Pepper record of the Beatles.

An update on our earlier Parajanov Biopic report: According to a Ukrainian company Interfilm and producer/director Olena Fetisova, she initiated the project back in 2008. In an email exchange with the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute she informed that she gave the screenplay to actor Sergei Gazarov in Moscow whom she considered for the lead role. According to Fetisova, Gazarov later decided to do his own Parajanov Biopic which, per Russian press, came to the Moscow-based production company Central Partnership (which hired Anna Melikyan to direct and Irakly Kvirikadze to write the screenplay). Central Partnership has not responded to our inquiries about the status of their project.

In the meantime, Parajanov's friend Roman Balayan - who initially agreed to direct the Ukrainian Parajanov Biopic - has reportedly stepped back to become the creative advisor. Serge Avedikian has been cast for the lead role and will co-direct the movie with Olena Fetisova. The shooting will begin in September in Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and Netherlands. We wish the team all the very best in this exciting yet truly herculean task, and we are thrilled that Roman Balayan will supervise the movie.

(It is noteworhty that Hollywood studios Disney and Fox have been recently reported as developing two competing Captain Nemo projects. Martin Scorsese, Baz Luhrmann and Oliver Stone were once all competing to film 3 different Alexander the Great biopics. Who makes the movie is irrelevant as long as the film - especially a biopic - is worthy of its subject)

Parajanov-Vartanov Institute is trying to confirm the authenticity and provenance of a Parajanov-related item that became available on Ebay (the sale ended on 25 December 2010). The item - priced at USD 7700.00 - is said to be a saddle from Sergei Paradjanov's film Legend of Suram Fortress. The piece is located in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Paradjanov fans in his home town of Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, have recently initiated a campaign to name a street after the great filmmaker. They said that since there's a Picasso Street then a Parajanov Street would also be very appropriate. Should the Georgian authorities approve it, the street may serve as a reminder that Sergei Paradjanov, a Georgia-born Armenian, is a symbol of unity of the people of the Caucasus. Recently, there has been a rise in envy and attacks against the outstanding achievments of Armenians in Georgia where Armenian churches, schools, and communities were targeted in an attempt to revise history, and to profit. Let us hope the Paradjanov Street will help end some of this injustice.

Incidentally, Sergei Paradjanov is featured in an article on the friendship of Armenian and Azeri people. Parajanov created his film Ashik Kerib (from an Azeri folk tale) during the escalation of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the historically Armenian region of Artsakh (Karabakh) which was included into the territory of Azerbaijan by the communist dictator Joseph Stalin.

On a related note, Sergei Paradjanov's collage Grandma's Nut Jam became the cover of a book titled Speaking to One Another which attempts to reconcile Armenians and Turks after the 1915 Armenian Genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey in which over a million Armenians were murdered and deported from their native land of several thousand years.

An ugly star for Sergei Paradjanov was placed in front of the famed Moscow Cinemas on the Aznavour Square in Armenia. Along with Parajanov, 3 other great filmmakers were unlucky to get this honor: Amo Bek-Nazarian - the pioneer of Armenian cinema; Henry Vernauil - the renowned French helmer; and Rouben Mamoulian - the innovative Hollywood master. Mamoulian, who directed such icons as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, has his star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame in California. The effort of the Armenian cultural authorities to copy Hollywood is disappointing. Instead of preserving Armenian cultural masterpieces, they spend money on cheap thrills to amaze themselves. This is in line with the epidemic construction of ugly new buildings and sites in Armenia, and should be stopped. Read this related blog.

Protesters in Armenia criticized the authorities for building a dolphinarium (a dolphin aquarium) in Komitas Park at the Pantheon where Sergei Paradjanov is buried. Many believe this will result in an abuse of dolphins and desecration of a sacred place. Read the Armenian Weekly report here.

Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is screening films by Ali Khamraev, a director from Uzbekistan, who was reportedly inspired by, and emulated, the work of Sergei Parajanov. The event is on 24-27 February 2011.

Parajanov's composer in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Miroslav Skorik, has said in a recent interview that Sergei Parajanov was "unpredictable, rough...but we worked out our differences..." Cinematographer of the film Yuri Ilyenko passed away on June 15, 2010.

Composer Tigran Mansurian, who scored Parajanov and Vartanov films, will conduct a presentation and lecture on the great Komitas at the Glendale Public Library in LA, California on April 16 and 17, 4-7pm.

The great Parajanov photographer Yuri Mechitov has published a new book titled 101 Portraits, which focuses on his (and Parajanov's) Georgian compatriots.