"Watching Sergei Parajanov's The Colour of Pomegranates, or Sayat Nova, is like opening a door and walking into another dimension, where time has stopped and beauty has been unleashed. On a very basic level, it's a biography of the Armenian poet Sayat Nova, but before all else it's a cinematic experience, and you come away remembering images, repeated expressive movements, costumes, objects, compositions, colours." — Martin Scorsese
When presenting this film at the Toronto Film Festival in 2014, Martin Scorsese called Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates “unlike anything in cinema history.” Indeed, the visual language of the Colour of Pomegranates is so personal and hermetic that interpreting it could be compared to reading a novel written in hieroglyphics.
Asia House was privileged to have author Nouritza Matossian join us to decode and discuss this cultural jewel of cinematography, which narrates the story 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova, in a tableau vivant in the style of medieval Armenian manuscript art, creating an aesthetic that is at once austere and achingly sensual.
This event was held in partnership with The Armenian Institute. We are immensely grateful to the Embassy of Georgia and Embassy of Armenia for their support.
Find out more at asiahousearts.org.
