Sergei Parajanov‘s Legend of Surami Fortress, his first film after the prison, released in 1984, is based on a Georgian folk-tale. A fortune teller predicts that a man must be immured into the walls of a fortress in order to stop it from crumbling. She is portrayed by Veriko Anjaparidze, whose real life daughter Sofiko Chiaureli (the lead of Parajanov’s masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates) stars as (the elderly) Vardo, while Leila Alibegashvilli (from Parajanov’s Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme) stars as the young Vardo. Both Sofiko and Leila also appear in Mikhail Vartanov‘s masterwork Parajanov: The Last Spring. In 1987, the film received the Best Innovative Film Award at the prestigious Rotterdam Film Festival. This helped lift the Iron Curtain for Parajanov and he was able to travel to Rotterdam in 1988. There he made the list of the 20 Directors of the Future. Vartanov’s interview with Parajanov for the occasion of the film’s release was published in the legendary French magazine Cahiers du Cinema.
You must be logged in to post a comment.