This retrospective of Parajanov's feature films is part of the international celebrations of his centenary, within the Parajanov 100 Madrid project. Presented for the first time in Madrid are a series of recent restorations offering a comprehensive view of his filmography. The series will open on the 15th at the Filmoteca Española, where it will also continue with second screenings of the feature films and a complementary program of short films and documentaries about the director.

“In the temple of cinema there are images, light, reality. Parajanov is the principal guardian of that temple.” (Jean-Luc Godard)

"In the mid-to-late 60s, Parajanov seemed to absorb internationally circulating ideas about a 'ritualistic' mise-en-scène, which had been developed before him in film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Miklos Jancsó, Kenneth Anger and Glauber Rocha, and in theatre by the Living Theatre and the fundamental theoretical speculations of Antonin Artaud (and all the work that came to inspire: Rivette, Carmelo Bene, Bertolucci's Partner... You can even detect a strange echo between the 'crowded paintings' of the Warhol/Morrissey Factory era (especially in Vinyl, inspired by A Clockwork Orange, 1965) and Sayat Nova!"

But Parajanov distanced this ritualistic tradition from improvisation, rawness, and “wild mobility”; instead, according to his temperament and intuition, he systematized his tableau technique into a static form that “accumulated” elements within the frame, or through false cuts that played on the intensities of how quickly or slowly a gesture should be performed, when a figure would look at the camera, the appearance and disappearance or transformation of objects (tapestries, musical instruments, garments…). In this way, Parajanov also helped to create a new kind of cinematic time, or temporality: “archaeological time,” full of sediments and strata (not narrative time that moves backward and forward at every instant), which Serge Daney found typical of modern Russian cinema.” (Adrian Martin, “Parajanov’s Frontality”)

Organized by:Círculo de Bellas Artes, Spanish Film Archive, Chair of Armenian Studies of the Complutense University of Madrid, Dovzhenko Center, Embassy of Armenia in Spain, Georgian National Film Center.