Legenda o suramskoj kreposti

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Sergej Paradjanov recounts an old Georgian legend with his imaginative fantasy. The legend is about a fortress on the border whose walls are penetrated again and again. A fortune teller prophesies that a young warrior must be walled into the fortress to make it impenetrable. The fortune teller is the former love of a peasant who is freed by his lord and looses his wife. His son takes the prophesy upon himself, sacrifices himself and becomes a folk hero.
“I am the only Soviet director that was imprisoned by three different regimes, under Stalin, under Brezhnev and under Andropov,« says the Armenian-Georgian Filmmaker Paradjanov.
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details

  • Runtime

    87 min
  • Country

    USSR
  • Year of Presentation

    1987
  • Year of Production

    1984/85
  • Director

    Sergej (Sergei) Paradjanov (Parajanov, Paradzhanov), David "Dodo" Abaschidse
  • Cast

    Weriko Andschaparidse, David "Dodo" Abaschidse, Sofiko Tschiaureli
  • Production Company

  • Berlinale Section

    Forum
  • Berlinale Category

    Essay Film

Biography Sergej (Sergei) Paradjanov (Parajanov, Paradzhanov)

One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant director at the Dovzhenko studios in Kiev, making his directorial debut in 1954, following that with numerous shorts and features, all of which he subsequently dismissed as "garbage". However, in 1964 he was able to make Feuerpferde (1964), a rhapsodic celebration of Ukrainian folk culture, and the world discovered a startling and idiosyncratic new talent. He followed this up with the even more innovative Die Farbe des Granatapfels (1969) (which explored the art and poetry of his native Armenia in a series of stunningly beautiful tableaux), but by this stage the authorities had had enough, and Paradjanov spent most of the 1970s in prison on almost certainly rigged charges of "homosexuality and illegal trafficking in religious icons". However, with the coming of perestroika, he was able to make Die Legende der Festung Suram (1985), Kerib, der Spielmann (1988) and The Confession, which survives as Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992), before succumbing to cancer in 1990.

Filmography Sergej (Sergei) Paradjanov (Parajanov, Paradzhanov)

1959 Pervyy paren | 1961 Ukrainskaya rapsodiya | 1969 Die Farbe des Granatapfels | 1985 Die Legende der Festung Suram | 1988 Kerib, der Spielmann | 1990 Khostovanank | 1992 Parajanov: The Last Spring (Documentary) (segment "The Confession")