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When he’s not spooking and seducing with films like “The Lighthouse” and his most recent work, a reinvention of F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” filmmaker Robert Eggers is enjoying the best of moody cinema. Chatting inside the Criterion Closet, Eggers praised the work of Soviet writer/director Sergei Parajanov, pulling his film “The Color of Pomegranates” off the shelf first.

“Parajanov is a really fascinating filmmaker who is really into recreating folk culture with a lot of detail,” said Eggers. “And he does these beautiful tableaus that are interpretation[s] of the art from the world that he’s trying to articulate and bring us into. And it’s really spectacular.”

Continuing his appreciation for film aesthetics, Eggers went on to grab a set of work from Pier Paolo Pasolini, taking care to acknowledge the efforts of his designers in crafting the environments he shoots.

Eggers told Criterion, “The worlds that Pasolini creates with Piero Tosi,...

“In the Moment of Match-Strike” is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.Ah, to be young! Issue 6 is dedicated to different expressions of youth in cinema, a time of surprise, invention, rebellion, and hope for the future. In a cross-generational feature, a group of parents curate a short film program and share the reactions (and drawings) of their own children. Plunging bravely into the madcap “microcinematic” world of videos found across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram feeds, filmmaker Nikita Lavretski provides a critical guide to one day’s intense viewing; in another artist contribution, Fox Maxy handwrites an inspiring letter to her younger self. Other features include academic Christopher Holliday on digital de-aging, visual artist Jonas Staal on product placement’s childhood targets, critic Philippa Snow on teenage fascination with visual extremity, and writer Adam Wray on bootleg movie merchandise. In a roundtable feature, the makers...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its Cinema Regained program, which showcases restored classics, documentaries on cinema and works by filmmaking masters.

This year’s Cinema Regained selection shines a light on filmmakers whose contributions have shaped cinema history, both celebrated and overlooked.

After a 30-year hiatus, Burkinabé director Drissa Touré makes his return with the world premiere of “Mousso Fariman,” co-directed with Stéphane Mbanga, which explores the contradictions in Burkina Faso’s society, focusing on the resilience of women in daily life.

The legacy of Sergei Parajanov is honored with the world premiere of “The Lilac Wind of Paradjanov,” 37 years after his first visit to the festival. Filmmaker Ali Khamraev, accompanied by cinematographer Yuri Klimenko, delved into the archives and traveled to Armenia and Georgia to honor Parajanov.

“The Jester” by José Álvaro Morais, which screened at IFFR in 1988, returns in a restored version, blending theater and cinema in...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled its “Cinema Regained” program for 2025, featuring 43 restored classics, documentaries, and film heritage explorations. The strand includes both contemporary works and pre-1970 restorations.

Key premieres include Mousso Fariman — the first film from Burkinabé director Drissa Touré (Haramuya) in 30 years, co-directed with Stéphane Mbanga — and The Lilac Wind of Paradjanov, a tribute to the late, legendary Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, from director Ali Khamraev. The film will screen in Rotterdam 38 years after Parajanov and co-director Dodo Abashidze’s The Legend of Suram Fortress premiered at IFFR in 1987, winning the prize for best innovative film.

The Cinema Regained program will also show a restored version of José Álvaro Morais’s The Jester, which was first screened at IFFR in 1988.

Other highlights include Lee Taewoong’s Korean Dream: The Nama-jinheung Mixtape, examining Korean Cold War history through archival footage; Khavn’s AI-driven Bomba Bernal, which pays homage...

Everything old was new again at this year’s Cairo Film Festival.

Filling out a super-sized 45th edition, the Egyptian event introduced a new section dedicated to heritage titles, showcasing 10 gems of world cinema, among them titles like “The Lonely Wife” and “The Color of Pomegranates” to mark the centenaries of film greats Satyajit Ray and Sergei Parajanov, as well as 4K restorations of “The Godfather Part II,” “The Thief of Baghdad” and “Cleopatra,” among several more.

As part of a bolstered Cairo Classics program, the festival also premiered 14 milestones of Egyptian cinema freshly remastered and reintroduced to an eager public. And as the Cairo Film Festival charts a new course under president Hussein Fahmy and artistic director Essam Zakarea, this restorative vocation will stay a cornerstone of their wider mission.

“Egyptian cinema is one of the oldest in the world, but we have a problem with our archive,” Zakarea tells Variety.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

In honor of Ken Kelsch, Abel Ferrara’s The Blackout and The Addiction screen on 35mm; prints of Douglas Buck’s Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America and the 2006 Sisters remake screen Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Film Forum

A 4K restoration of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Il Grido begins; 42 screens on Sunday.

Bam

A series of New York coming-of-age movies begins, including Crooklyn on 35mm.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein plays in 3D on Friday; a Frank Oz series.

Metrograph

Light Sleeper and The White Ribbon show on 35mm; Around Ludlow, The World Is a Stage, and a Jeff Wall program begins; My Crazy Uncle (or Aunt) and Insomnia continue.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

A series of “silent” movies includes films by Tati, Miguel Gomes, and Chaplin.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Seventh Victim and The Fog play on Friday; a Godzilla series gets underway; The Indian in the Cupboard plays on 35mm Saturday and Sunday.

Metrograph

Rio Bravo, Funny Games, Insomnia, Kung Fu Hustle, The Outfit, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird show on 35mm; My Crazy Uncle (or Aunt), Insomnia, and Crush the Strong, Help the Weak begin.

Roxy Cinema

Dancer in the Dark and Scream play on 35mm, while Suspiria and Without You I’m Nothing also screen.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive retrospective of Portuguese cinema continues, while the films of Mohammad Reza Aslani screen.

IFC Center

4K restorations...

Ahhh, fall. It’s finally here. The leaves are dropping, pumpkin spice is in the air (and everyone’s coffee), and the holidays are close enough where we’re all either rushing to get our work done before the end of the year or starting to wind down in hopes that people will soon stop bothering us. It’s a magical time, especially with new awards contenders like “Anora” and “Conclave” finally releasing to wide audiences, but let’s not forget that older films deserve some love too. Especially around Thanksgiving, a holiday specifically designed for reflection. What better way to celebrate than looking back on some classics of cinema, both the widely seen and the obscure.

While October may have provided the spooks in New York and Los Angeles repertory theaters, November aims to calm things down with light offerings for youngsters like “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is now playing.

Bam

Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer’s Candy Mountain begins screening in a new restoration. (Watch our exclusive trailer debut.)

Museum of the Moving Image

Monsters Inc. and What About Bob? play in a Frank Oz retrospective; Chantal Akerman’s American Stories: Food, Family and Philosophy screens on Sunday; The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shows throughout the weekend.

Metrograph

The Decameron, Fellini Satyricon, In America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Legend of Suram Fortress, Corpse Bride, All the President’s Men, The Candidate, We Won’t Grow Old Together, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and Momma’s Man show on 35mm; an Azazel Jacobs series and Follow the Money: Kimberly Reed Selects begin; The Phantom of Ester Krumbachová, Rabbit on the Moon,...

The legacy and inspiration of Soviet director Sergei Parajanov is at the center of I Will Revenge This World With Love – S. Parajanov, a new documentary from director Zara Jian, which premieres at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The Hollywood Reporter has gotten the exclusive first look at the trailer for the film — see below — in which an impressive array of auteur directors, including Atom Egoyan, Tarsem Singh and Emir Kusturica, as well other artists such as Russian actress-in-exile Chulpan Khamatova discuss the impact of Parajanov’s cinema on their lives and work.

The Georgian-born Parajanov became a revolutionary force in international cinema with Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), his first film to reject the socialist realism of officially-sanctioned Soviet cinema in favor of a more experimental, poetic visual storytelling. Hugely influential on independent and arthouse cinema — several of his movies, including Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of the Moving Image

A Sergei Parajanov retrospective has begun, while “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” includes Speed and Strange Days on 35mm.

Anthology Film Archives

A Bruce Baille program plays in “Essential Cinema,” while Denys Arcand films screen.

Film Forum

Seven Samurai begins playing in a new 4K restoration, while Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room and Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine continue.

Metrograph

The Infernal Affairs trilogy screens this weekend; films by Bergman and Wes Anderson play on 35mm as part of Summer at Sea; films by Marker and Godard play in Under the Pavement, the Beach; Summer of Rohmer and Piping Hot Pfeiffer continue.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues.

IFC Center

Blow Out, Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, and The Cook, the Thief,...

My Friend Ivan LapshinImage: International Film Exchange

When I was an undergrad in film school, one of the pillar courses was a two-semester film history class that would act as a broad survey to give us a foundation as aspiring filmmakers and workers. Naturally, this course was also about its...

Updated with minor clarifications from Martiros Vartanov. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is shining a spotlight on one of the most revered filmmakers in cinema history.

On Friday evening the museum in Los Angeles will screen a restored version of visionary Armenian filmmaker and poet Sergei Parajanov’s 1969 classic The Color of Pomegranates, marking the 100th anniversary of his birth. In addition, the museum is premiering the newly restored Parajanov: The Last Spring, a documentary about Parajanov directed by Soviet-born filmmaker and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov.

The Color of Pomegranates, a visually metamorphic and hybrid narrative, follows the life of the great 18th century Armenian poet and musician, Sayat Nova. Oscillating between stillness and movement – Pomegranates is a mesmerizing wide-canvas painting on film and has been hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time in various polls conducted by Movieline, Time Out, and the British Film Institute’s magazine,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors plays on Friday; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday, while Space Jam screens on 35mm this Sunday.

Film Forum

Le Samouraï screens in a new 4K restoration; Hondo’s West Indies and the Belmondo-led Classe tous risques continue playing in new 4K restorations; Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein plays on Sunday.

Paris Theater

A dual retrospective of Steven Zaillian and Patricia Highsmith brings films by Hitchcock, Fincher, Scorsese, Haynes, Wenders, and more.

Anthology Film Archives

The films of Med Hondo play in a massive retrospective, while The Story of a Three Day Pass plays in “Americans in Paris.”

Film at Lincoln Center

The films of Wojciech Has continue screening.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Last Temptation of Christ screens on Friday and Saturday; Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet plays on 35mm...

Faraz Fesharaki reveals himself a poet of the digital era with “What Did You Dream Last Night, Parajanov?”. The Iranian German filmmaker's first feature released just weeks ago at Berlinale 2024, a home festival for the of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (Dffb). Now, the film will continue on abroad, with an upcoming international premiere this week at First Look with the Museum of the Moving Image's (MoMI).

What Did You Dream Last Night, Parajanov? is screening at MoMi, as part of the First Look 2024 program

“What Did You Dream Last Night, Parajanov?” opens with the wavering scanlines of a Crt screen. The curtains pull back to reveal a recording of an elementary school chorus in Iran. Like any amateur video, the footage is grainy; the view quivers with the shakiness of a handheld camera. A girl recites into the microphone – “Rise, oh children, rise!” – whilst two rows...

UK producer David P Kelly has come on board Zara Jian’s hybrid documentary drama I Will Revenge This World With Love celebrating Armenia’s greatest filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov.

Jian is shooting material at the Berlinale with Canadian-Armenian director Atom Egoyan, whose The Seven Veils screens as a Berlinale Special. Paradjanov (1924-90) directed Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour Of Pomegranates.

Double Palme D’Or winner Emir Kusturica, Joel Chapiron, and Lora Guerra are on board the project, which is being set up as an Armenian-French-uk coproduction with support from the Cnc in France and the National Cinema Centre of Armenia.

Above: Soviet-export poster for Ashik Kerib. Design by “Lem.”On January 9 of this year, the legendary, often beleaguered and utterly sui generis filmmaker Sergei Parajanov would have turned 100 years old. Parajanov was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1924 to Armenian parents, just seven years after the Russian Revolution. He died in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1990 at the age of 66, only a year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. His life and career were very much defined by the strictures of the Ussr, including four years spent in a labor camp in the mid-’70s on trumped-up charges of crimes against the state, and numerous personal projects that were banned, censored, or shut down by Soviet film administrations.One of the world’s most exceptional filmmakers, Parajanov managed to make only eight feature films in his four-decade-long career. His first four socialist realist features were made at the Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv and,...

When thinking of Armenian cinema, the names of Sergei Parajanov and Artavazd Peleshyan come to mind. These two titans are influential not only for Armenian or Soviet cinema but world film heritage. Both introduced unique storytelling methods—one infusing the screen with poetry and collaged images, the second conceiving of the “Distance Montage” technique. But Armenian cinema, which marks its 100th anniversary this year, has other notable filmmakers whose work deserves no less recognition. ArmenFilm (HayFilm), the first and main film production body of Armenia, was established in 1923 as a separate department within the People’s Commissariat of the Soviet Armenia. […]

The post 100 Years of Making Films: The Centenary of Armenian Cinema first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

When thinking of Armenian cinema, the names of Sergei Parajanov and Artavazd Peleshyan come to mind. These two titans are influential not only for Armenian or Soviet cinema but world film heritage. Both introduced unique storytelling methods—one infusing the screen with poetry and collaged images, the second conceiving of the “Distance Montage” technique. But Armenian cinema, which marks its 100th anniversary this year, has other notable filmmakers whose work deserves no less recognition. ArmenFilm (HayFilm), the first and main film production body of Armenia, was established in 1923 as a separate department within the People’s Commissariat of the Soviet Armenia. […]

The post 100 Years of Making Films: The Centenary of Armenian Cinema first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Made in Russian at Odesa Film Studio in the aftermath of de-Stalinization, Kira Muratova’s Brief Encounters and The Long Farewell nonetheless faced censorship for ignoring the precepts of socialist realism. They make for fruitful viewing as a diptych, sharing in certain themes, motifs, and, above all, a rulebook-shredding attitude to cinematic form. Neither overtly criticize Soviet life, yet they smuggle in a discontent that’s detectable less by what they condemn than by what they frame instead: the domestic, the psychological, the interpersonal. What’s surprising isn’t that they got banned, but that Muratova managed to get them made at all. Now especially, watching these two films feels like something of a miracle.

Brief Encounters, from 1967, tells the story of Nadya (Nina Ruslanova), a young woman who leaves her village to work as a housekeeper for Valya (Muratova), committee member to a provincial Odesa district, and her husband,...

La BêteCOMPETITIONComandante (Edoardo De Angelis)The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel)Dogman (Luc Besson) La Bête (Bertrand Bonello) Hors-Saison (Stéphane Brizé) Enea (Pietro Castellitto) Maestro (Bradley Cooper)Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)Finalmente L’Alba (Saverio Costanzo)Lubo (Giorgio Diritti) Origin (Ava DuVernay) The Killer (David Fincher)Memory (Michel Franco)Io capitano (Matteo Garrone)Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)The Theory of Everything (Timm Kröger)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)El conde (Pablo Larrain)Ferrari (Michael Mann)Adagio (Stefano Sollima)Woman OfHolly (Fien Troch)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionSociety of the Snow (J.A. Bayona)Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)The Penitent (Luca Barbareschi)L’Ordine Del Tempo (Liliana Cavani)Vivants (Alix Delaporte)Welcome to Paradise (Leonardo di Constanzo)Daaaaaali! (Quentin Dupieux)The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (William Friedkin)Making of (Cedric Kahn)Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)Hitman (Richard Linklater)The Palace (Roman Polanski...

At a certain point you care less about world premieres and fixate mostly on a festival’s repertory slate. And even by the high standards set with Cannes Classics or NYFF Revivals is this year’s Venice Classics in a class of its own. We could start at the new cuts for three of the greatest directors ever: One from the Heart is the latest film to be given a revision by Francis Ford Coppola, following recuts of Apocalypse Now, Twixt, and Dementia 13––to say nothing of restorations like The Rain People, of which we’re hosting the New York premiere next weekend––while Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev will debut in “the reconstruction of the complete original version, which was censored before its release and has never been seen until now.” Meanwhile one of Yasujiro Ozu’s greatest films, There Was a Father, has been amended by “recent rediscovery...

The first screening of the uncensored version of ’Andrei Rublev’ by Andrei Tarkovsky has also been programmed.

Venice Classics will include a screening of ‘The Exorcist’ and tributes to late filmmakers Ruggero Deodato and Carlos Saura as part of its line-up of restored features for the 2023 edition.

The Exorcist, by William Friedkin, returns in a restored version, to mark the 100th anniversary of its distributor, Warner Bros.

Italian genre master Deodato passed away last year. One of his most extreme films, Ultimo Mondo Cannibale, has been programmed in tribute. This edition also pays homage to Italian actor Gina Lollobrigida, who died in January,...

Recently restored versions of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist,” Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart” feature in the Venice Classics section of the 80th Venice Film Festival.

The lineup of recently restored films in Venice Classics, which is curated by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Federico Gironi, was unveiled on Friday.

“The Exorcist” is screened, 50 years after it was produced by Warner Bros., alongside Disney’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” starring Shirley Temple and directed by “the prolific and sometimes brilliant” Allan Dwan, to mark the Hollywood studios’ 100th anniversaries.

“One From the Heart” and Arturo Ripstein’s “Deep Crimson” are “not just restored, but also revised by the filmmakers themselves in what are genuine Director’s Cuts,” Barbera and Gironi said, while Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece “Andrei Rublev” will be presented in the reconstruction of the original version,...

Ukraine is to host its first ever queer film festival, it was announced at Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam.

Sunny Bunny – named after Kyiv-based Molodist Film Fest’s non-competition section, established in 2001 – is eyeing a summer slot.

“Maybe it’s a bit stereotypical to do it in June, as it’s Pride Month, but it will give us more time to prepare,” programmer Bohdan Zhuk revealed to Variety on Tuesday. Pointing out that the standalone event might still continue to be a part of Molodist in some form.

“The war is unpredictable, so you just have to adapt and be flexible. When we did Molodist in December, there were blackouts, so we needed generators. We also needed to plan where people would hide in case of raids, plan out shelters in cinemas or nearby metro stations,” he added.

“The plan is to do it separately, but also to keep that connection.

Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary

Tár (2022)

Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

The Big Parade (1925)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The Crowd (1928)

Star Wars (1977)

The Servant (1963)

Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review

The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Figures In A Landscape (1970)

M (1931)

M (1951)

I Am Cuba (1964)

The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Letter Never Sent (1960)

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

The Sting (1973)

The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Thelma And Louise (1991)

Murmur Of The Heart (1971)

The Silent World (1956)

Opening Night (1977)

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...

In the middle of the 1970s, Sergei Parajanov was killing time. Imprisoned for what the authorities considered subversive activities, the filmmaker began carving figures into milk bottle lids with the one tool he had: his fingernails. Much of that collection still survives, housed in a museum in Yerevan that bares his name. And every year or so, wars and pandemics notwithstanding, one or two are picked out, cast in silver, and awarded at the Golden Apricot Film Festival.

One of this year’s recipients, Albert Serra, took the stage at the festival’s opening ceremony to receive his award and delivered a speech as succinct as it was selective—which is to say, some previous honourees were noted and some were not. “I mentioned the ones I really love,” Serra explained to me, sipping coffee in the atrium of the Grand Hotel the next morning, “Ulrich Seidl is a master.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSUndine.Christian Petzold has begun filming The Red Sky, which will star Paula Beer of Transit and Undine. Set on the Baltic Sea, the film follows four young people sharing a vacation home surrounded by uncontrollable forest fires, navigating desire in the midst of environmental disaster.Production has also commenced on a new feature from Marco Bellocchio. The Conversion is inspired by the life of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped by the Catholic Church in 1858. Steven Spielberg was previously attached to the project.Verso Books has acquired the debut novel from Love Witch director Anna Biller. Set to publish in September 2023, Bluebeard's Castle is a "contemporary gothic suspense novel" about a young mystery writer who falls in love with a dashing baron—only for their marriage to crumble disastrously in a remote castle.

A journalist discovers her husband’s infidelity in a poetic, pleasingly surreal drama by Georgian director Lana Gogoberidze

There’s a restless, bustling nervous energy to this Georgian movie from 1978; it’s a romantic comedy of manners from director and co-writer Lana Gogoberidze with a freewheeling kind of New Wave feel, set in a city for which the term Swinging Tbilisi isn’t quite right, but certainly a busy, modern place for busy, modern people.

Georgian actor Sofiko Chiaureli, known for her collaborations with Sergei Parajanov and an icon for her appearance in his The Colour of Pomegranates, plays Sofiko, a high-powered newspaper interviewer, known for her sympathetic “human interest” pieces featuring ordinary women telling her about their lives. Sofiko is always dashing about town in her mackintosh and quizzical glasses (which make her look a bit like Isabelle Huppert) accompanied by dishevelled photographer Irakli (Janri Lolashvili), who may be in love with her.

April marks Armenian Heritage Month in Los Angeles County, and more broadly, April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day for Armenians worldwide — both at home and across the diaspora. It commemorates the more than 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide — orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 — and is observed as a day of mourning, as well as a celebration of Armenian culture, heritage and the ethnic group’s tenacious spirit.

While representation of Armenian narratives in film is lacking in mainstream entertainment, there are several underrated gems and long-hailed classics through which you can learn more about and celebrate Armenian heritage, from Sergei Parajanov’s poetic masterpiece “The Color of Pomegranates” to Sean Baker’s iPhone-shot indie “Tangerine.” Hailing from acclaimed international and US-based auteurs, TheWrap’s list covers a range of genres, including war dramas, documentaries and comedies — both old and new. Below, we outline 11 of the must-watch movies highlighting...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Sonny Chiba in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). Sonny Chiba, the prolific and singular actor, martial artist and choreographer, has died at the age of 82.New York Film Festival has unveiled its Currents section, featuring a strong slate that includes Artavazd Peleshian, Ted Fendt, Shengze Zhu, Christopher Harris, Shireen Seno, Matías Piñeiro and more. NYFF will also be screening seven programs dedicated to the centenary of the late film programmer and festival co-founder Amos Vogel. The retrospective includes works by Glauber Rocher, Oskar Fischinger, and Dušan Makavejev. The Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival has announced its lineup. This year's Focus program will showcase the works of Cambodian production company Anti-Archive, Nguyễn Trinh Thí, Rajee Samarasinghe, and Sps Community Media. Organized by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Archival Assembly #1 will take place from...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSChameleon StreetThe New York Film Festival has announced an excellent selection for its Revivals section. The roster includes restorations of Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala, John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, Sarah Maldoror's Sambizanga, Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s Chameleon Street, and Michael Powell's Bluebeard's Castle. The 2021 Locarno Film Festival has come to an end, with Indonesian filmmaker Edwin's Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash winning the Golden Leopard. For a full list of this year's award winners, read here. Recommended VIEWINGAhead of premiere, a trailer for the latest Spike Lee joint: the four-part documentary series NYC Epicenters: 9/11 → 2021 ½. The series, which captures twenty years of New York City history from the perspective of its citizens, will premiere on HBO Max August 22. Cinema Guild has released a trailer for Matías Piñeiro's Isabella.

Full Bloom is a series, written by Patrick Holzapfel and illustrated by Ivana Miloš, that reconsiders plants in cinema. Directors have given certain flowers, trees or herbs special attention for many different reasons. It’s time to give them the credit they deserve and highlight their contributions to cinema, in full bloom.Ivana Miloš, Weeping Willow Meets Andriesh (2021), nature print, monotype and gouache on paper, 33 x 24 cm.The soul of a tree is my soul; the heart of a tree is my heart; the sap of the willow is my life. —The Story of Aoyagi, Lafcadio HearnWhenever you turn on the news these days, you are likely to see a burning forest. These images of fires across the world bring with them the unbearable sound of screaming tree spirits. They may only be audible to some of us, but once you finally hear them weep, you can’t sleep any longer.

Top: the original DVD release of Michael Mann's Thief. Below: the recent Criterion Blu-ray after Mann's restorationWhen Dr. James Steffen was in high school, a friend had an encounter with a film called Invasion of the Bee Girls, a 1973 exploitation film. His friend described seeing the film—which included a number of scandalous scenes, including an explicit topless scene—broadcast on late night television. But when the film eventually made its way to home video, Steffen felt a little frustrated. Scenes his friend had described from the television broadcast were nowhere to be found. Somewhere along the way, some entity had chosen to excise certain scenes from the picture. All was not lost, however. In 2017, Shout Factory released the full, uncut film on blu-ray, and Steffen finally got to see the film as intended.Today, Steffen is a film and media studies librarian at Emory University, as well as...

I. Home, Uninhabitable “It’s impossible to live here.” These words are uttered by Lena, who's just arrived back home to her village in the Caucasus, where there’s been a war on for two years. Childhood is over, and geopolitical conflict has warped her surroundings. She intends to collect her grandparents and take them back with her to Moscow, but is soon trapped, when the trains stop running. Armenian director Maria Saakyan’s The Lighthouse immerses us in the mind of a woman for whom real sanctuary exists only in memories. Impossible to live in one’s home as it was, but impossible not to return obsessively in dreams—it’s the in-between fate of exiles which Saakyan, who relocated from Yerevan to Moscow with her family in 1992 amid the region’s political turmoil, knew all too well. She turned to a poetic, uncanny cinematic language to grapple with...

Arguably among the most beautiful works of cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s “The Colour of Pomegranates” has been called a work of lasting artistry, offering breathtaking imagery while also giving what might just be the most accurate account of the poet’s mind. In this case, the poet in question is Sayat-Nova, an Armenian poet and troubadour, whose life and work is the foundation for Parajanov’s film which was originally titled after the poet himself. However, when the Soviet censors laid eyes on the finished film, the argued Parajanov’s movie does not give a portrayal of the poet, nothing about his fame and importance for literature or indeed for the country, a dispute which eventually resulted in the censors re-naming the film “The Colour of Pomegranates” and the removal of all references to Sayat-Nova in the film.

Considering it does not follow a traditional, linear narrative,...

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society will kick off its 2020 Cine Fan programme with more cinematic gems in its January/February edition, including the delicately sublime dramas of Naruse Mikio and the magical realism-infused romance of Sergei Parajanov.

One of the most prolific and respected masters of Japanese cinema, Naruse Mikio is lauded for his realistic dramas of domestic life and his sympathetic portraits of women. The Cine Fan retrospective, entitled Life is But an Illusion: The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, features 12 of his most iconic works, including some rarely seen outside of Japan. Thematically curated in three separate sections, it showcases Naruse’s uncanny ability in the portrayal of artistic reflection, marital dilemmas and social transformations.

Still from “Flowing”

Under Love/Art, Naruse’s quietly devastating camera captured the dichotomy between artistic excellence and elusive love in his four-film collaboration with the legendary actress Yamada Isuzu in Tsuruhachi...

A remarkable trove of cinematic riches from Ukraine, much of it rarely seen outside the country, is headlining several sections of the Ji.hlava docu fest this year, with especially strong showings in the Fascinations section, dedicated to experimental work.

That genre has long been a signature element of Ji.hlava, which invariably screens experimental, essay and convention-breaking films many audiences would hardly expect to encounter at an event nominally dedicated to documentaries.

But, as programmer Andrea Slovakova points out, Ji.hlava has for years taken up the challenge of bringing to audiences all manner of fringe and underground film from throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

What she calls “radically poetic and lyrical films” are just one strain of the work from Ukraine being celebrated at Ji.hlava this year, Slovakova says, most made by successors or students of Sergei Parajanov or Feliks Sobolev, whose work is feted in a tribute section.

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

“No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” commences with Xavier: Renegade Angel, Starship Troopers and more.

“See It Big! Ghost Stories” continues.

The Greek feature Electra plays this Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Restorations of Le Professeur and Sergei Parajanov shorts play as part of the 57th New York Film Festival’s final weekend.

The year’s best-curated selection of cinema begins this Friday at Film at Lincoln Center: the New York Film Festival. Now in its 57th edition, the event will kick off with one of its most high-profile world premieres in years, Martin Scorsese’s 3.5-hour crime epic The Irishman. What will follow is 17 days of the finest world cinema has to offer.

Since you are surely aware of their more high-profile selections–including Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner Parasite, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, and a certain jokester–in our preview we’ve sought out to highlight some films that are either flying a bit under the radar or go beyond their Main Slate selections. Check out 12 films to see, along with all reviews thus far, and return for our coverage. See the full schedule and more here.

Atlantics (Mati Diop)

Somewhere along the stretch of Senegalese coastline where...

Since the birth of the medium, films have ventured intrepidly into hell. From the moment Georges Méliès put Satan’s lair on screen in 1903’s The Damnation of Faust, all manner of filmmakers have wrangled with their own visions of the netherworld—from the minds behind myriad torturous horrors and screwball comedies to art-house behemoths such as Jean-Luc Godard, in Notre musique (2004). Canadian filmmaker Stephen Broomer’s entry into this century-old pantheon, Tondal’s Vision, is a tribute to one early cinematic journey into the underworld and to various other artistic katabasis while remaining a truly singular rendering. At once thrilling and terrifying, the film seems to recall that line in Milton’s Paradise Lost: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…”The physical source material for Broomer’s vision is Giuseppe de Liguoro, Francesco Bertolini, and...

Ari Aster’s sophomore feature Midsommar isn’t a horror movie in the typical sense—or, at least, that’s what the marketing campaign of its U.S. distributor A24 (to say nothing of the critical discourse surrounding the film) would have you believe. Made directly following the success of his acclaimed debut Hereditary (2018), the film reportedly started out as a slasher movie, and although it's now something quite different, it retains the general framework of one. The deaths of its principal characters are less a matter of if, but when, and are presented with enough gruesome variation to satisfy even the most avid gore-hounds. But as Midsommar unfolds predominantly under Sweden’s “midnight sun,” the film has the supposed distinction of being the brightest horror film ever made, with more than a few scenes blindingly, intentionally overexposed in a transparent bid for that superlative. It is also, we are meant to gather,...

Iffr, the international film festival of Rotterdam has announced a number of exciting titles, including Soudade Kaadan’s ‘The Day I Lost My Shadow’, Brian Welsh’s ‘Beats’ and Simona Kostova’s ‘Dreissig’.

This year’s theme programs touch on espionage, memes, (un)finished films, new Afro-Brazilian cinema and the ‘reappraisal of hushed, quiet attention to film’.

Click here for a first overview of 2019’s program.

Bero Beyer , Dirextor of Iffr ( photo credit: Jan de Groen)

Iffr arts program is featuring a new artwork by Philippe Parreno, director and writer, known for Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait(2006), Le pont du trieur (2000) and Anywhen in a Timecolored place (2016) called No More Reality (1988–2018), a special installation screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s Le livre d’image and a thought-provoking presentation of never-before-seen outtakes from Sergei Parajanov’s classic film The Colour of Pomegranates. One of the 20th century’s greatest masters of cinema,...

AndreischAfter the staggering success of Shadows of The Forgotten Ancestors (1965), which won awards in London, New York, Mar Del Plata and Montreal, Sergei Parajanov was thrust onto the world stage as one of the most original filmmakers in the business. Depicting the conventions of the Hutsul people of the Carpathian mountains, it was a brave new step in Soviet filmmaking due to its restless camerawork, intense subjectivity, and ambiguous tone. The positive reception would inform his later work, a triumph of the local, celebrating ancient customs and dress in a visually dazzling fashion. To celebrate his legacy, Arsenal Kino in Berlin, supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia, presented all eight of Parajanov’s feature films this fall, allowing audiences to see how the acclaimed filmmaker changed from studio-tied hack to inimitable auteur. When talking about Parajanov’s filmmaking and style, critics will invariably focus on his last four films—Forgotten Ancestors,...

“Life is color.”

Ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran resulting in a drastic change in the country as a whole, its relationship to the world has always been troublesome to say the least. Leaving the political debates aside for a moment, its views on religious issues, women and culture have led to some rather schizophrenic works, for example, in the world of film. While directors such as Asghar Farhadi (“About Elly”) create works of social criticism, showing the state not as the antagonist of the story, but more like a silent, omnipresent entity influencing the lives of people, others have been censored and even put under house arrest. In his documentary “This Is Not a Film” (2011), Jafar Panahi shows how he deals with the ban of his films in his home country, the fears he and his family have to go through as an excruciating search for answers in...

“Art, no matter how high it rises, cannot forget the land which birthed it.” - Martiros Saryan. That quote, by a prominent Armenian painter, begins The Color of Armenian Land, a scarcely seen short documentary by Mikhail Vartanov which, at least in part, documents the making of The Color of Pomegranates, Sergei Parajanov’s historic film of tableau and symbolism. While many cinephiles work overtime to separate great art from any repulsive behaviors of its artist, Saryan, by way of Vartanov, and now by way of the Criterion Collection, remind us that art, its artists, and the lands from which they hail, are all of a piece. ...

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It’s difficult to approach Sergei Parajanov’s 1969 masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates without the permeation of the troubled history of both its reception and its filmmaker. A suppressed jewel of Soviet Cinema, the mystically imagined biopic of eighteenth-century Armenian troubadour Sayat-Nova is stuffed with folk symbolism. In contemporary terminology, Parajanov’s approach would most likely be labeled as an art-house fever dream, an idiosyncratic (or esoteric) challenge to conceptions of linear, biographically inspired cinema. Parajanov’s signature title wasn’t available outside of the Soviet Union until 1983, which also saw the resurrection of Parajanov’s career as a director. Banned upon its initial…...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton assesses the Armenian director Sergei Parajanov’s poetic and metaphor-filled biopic about his countryman Sayat Nova, the Armenian poet-troubadour. This new disc edition offers both versions of the picture, Parajanov’s original and the Soviet-approved version cut by seven minutes. As we learn, if a Soviet film director found favor internationally, they often landed in trouble back home.

The Colour of Pomegranates

Region B Blu-ray

Second Sight (UK)

1969 / Color / 1.33 flat full frame / 79 min. / Sayat Nova, Nran Guyne / Street Date, 19 Feb 2018 / £29.99

Starring: Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan, Gogi Gegechkori, Spartak Bagashvili, Medea Japaridze, Hovhannes Minasyan.

Cinematography: Suren Shakhbazyan

Film Editor: Marfa Ponomarenko

Production Designer: Stepan Andranikyan

Original Music: Tigran Mansuryan

Written and Directed by Sergei Parajanov

Reviewed by Lee Broughton

Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates is a film with a troubled release history. The Russian censor ruled that Parajanov’s initial cut of the...

Apologies for the lateness of this posting, but since it's just you and me here, devoted fans of classy and extremely well-presented home video, allow me to say: the Criterion Collection's lineup is getting more and more exciting! In April 2018, the company plans to release two strikingly different black and white films: Leo McCarey's wonderful comedy The Awful Truth, starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy; and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, his first period picture, starring Johnny Depp. Sofia Coppola's strikingly subduedl The Virgin Suicides and Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates -- about which I know nothing -- and a bevy of Bergman. The latter is part of Criterion's no-frills Eclipse line and will allow fans of the fab Ingrid Berman to...

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Earlier today the folks at the Criterion Collection unveiled their much-anticipated line-up for April 2018, featuring some must-own Blu-rays and another new entry in the Eclipse Series!

Below you’ll find links to the corresponding pages on Amazon, where you can pre-order the new releases.

April 10th Eclipse Series 46: Ingrid Bergman’s Swedish Years

Ingrid Bergman appeared in ten films in her native Sweden before the age of twenty-five, and while that work tends to be overshadowed by her time in Hollywood, it showcases the actor summoning an impressive depth of emotion to deliver astute, passionate performances.

Eclipse Series 46: Ingrid Bergman's Swedish Years (The Criterion Collection) $47.93 1 new from $47.93 Buy Now Amazon.com Free shipping Last updated on March 6, 2018 3:11 pm April 17th The Awful Truth

In this Oscar-winning farce, Cary Grant (in the role that first defined the Cary Grant persona) and Irene Dunne exude charm, cunning, and artless affection as an urbane couple who,...