Sergei Paradjanov house-museum director Zaven Sargsyan mentioned during the birthday of the artist at the Pantheon, that Parajanov was not able to finish more than 20 films. “Very pity, of course… During the years that he was able to shoot, it comes out that he was not shooting for 15 years, that is – they forbid him to do what he was doing. And what was interesting? Afterwards, when he was imprisoned, they told that he had not shot anything since 1964, as if it was him to be blamed for. I speak of Ukraine.”
As stated by Zaven Harutyunyan: “He was dreaming of shooting Ara Geghetsik (Ara the Handsome), he wrote a letter to Karen Demirchyan, but the letter remained unanswered, but it comes out that in reality Suslov was critically against. It is clear that back then without Moscow’s permission they could not act.”
Asked whether Parajanov is fully valued today, Zaven Sargsyan replied: “Now the museum is in place, the whole world knows and thousands of people visit… And what does “to value” mean..? Not any given person can value at once, time and work is needed… There are people who are wholly cut off from art in the whole world, forasmuch as art language is not a simple one. Unfortunately, today the professionalism disappears in all fields, starting from architecture, which is painful… The overall atmosphere is awful… Now they award each other all of a sudden, the do not understand that what is good and what is bad.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Photo credit: Ukrainian film operator and photographer, Sergei Parajanov’s friend, Yuri Garmash
