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Sergei Parajanov (Armenian: Սարգիս ՀովսեՓի Փարաջանյան Sargis Hovsepi Parajanyan; Russian: Сергей Иосифович Параджанов Sergej Iosifovich Paradzhanov; January 9, 1924 - July 20 1990 Armenia), also spelled Paradzhanov or Paradjanov, is considered by many to be one of the most original and critically-acclaimed filmmakers of the 20th century. His work reflected the ethnic diversity of the Caucasus where he was raised.

He was born to Armenian parents Iosif Paradjanyan and Siranush Bejanyan, in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1945, Parajanov traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools of Europe, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko and Aleksandr Dovzhenko.

In 1950 Parajanov married his first wife, Nigyar Kerimova in Moscow. She came from a Muslim Tatar family and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to marry Parajanov, to terrible consequences: she was later murdered by her relatives in retaliation for her conversion. As a result of this tragic event Parajanov moved to Kiev. There he produced several documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films based on Ukrainian and Moldovan folktales, such as Andriesh, Ukrainian Rhapsody, and Flower on the Stone. He became fluent in Ukrainian, remarried (Svetlana Ivanovna Sherbatiuk in 1956) and had a son (Suren, 1958).

In 1964 he directed Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which won numerous international awards including the prestigious BAFTA award given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Despite the numerous awards it received and its frequent comparison with Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors did not conform to the strict standards of the Soviet board of censors. Unwilling to alter his film, Parajanov was quickly blacklisted.

Parajanov departed Kiev shortly afterwards for his cultural motherland of Armenia. In 1968, Parajanov embarked on Sayat Nova, a film which many consider to be his crowning achievement. Soviet censors intervened once again and immediately banned Sayat Nova for its allegedly inflammatory content. Parajanov re-edited his footage and renamed the film, The Color of Pomegranates. It remains his best-known and the most emblematic film.

By December 1973, Soviet authorities grew increasingly suspicious of Parajanov's perceived subversive proclivities and sentenced him to five years in a hard labor camp. An eclectic group of artists, filmmakers and activists protested on his behalf, but to little avail. Parajanov served four years out of his five year sentence, and many credit the poet Louis Aragon's petition to the Soviet government as instrumental in Parajanov's early release. While incarcerated Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost).

Upon his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented him from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards artistic outlets which he had nurtured during his time in prison. He crafted extraordinarily intricate collages, created a large collection of abstract drawings and pursued numerous other avenues of non-cinematic art.

By 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian intellectuals, Parajanov created the multi-award winning Legend of Suram Fortress based on the novella by Daniel Chonkadze, a return to cinema after an interlude of fifteen years since Sayat Nova first premiered. In 1988 Parajanov made another multi-award winning film, Ashik Kerib, based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky.

Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved too monumental to withstand his failing health.

He died of cancer in Yerevan, Armenia, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving his final masterpiece, The Confession unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Paradjanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov in 1992. He left behind a book of memoirs, also titled "The Confession".

Such luminaries as Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi, Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his passing.

• Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) (segment "The Confession") http://www.parajanov.com/lastspring.html
• Ashugi Qaribi (1988) ... aka Ashik Kerib (1988) (Soviet Union: Russian title)
• Arabeskebi Pirosmanis temaze (1985) ... aka Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme (1985)
• Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa (1984) ... aka Legend of the Suram Fortress, The (1984)
• Sayat Nova (1968) ... aka The Color of Pomegranates (1968)
• Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967)
• Tini zabutykh predkiv (1964) ... aka Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1967) (USA)
• Tsvetok na kamne (1962) ... aka Flower on the Stone (1962)
• Ukrainskaya rapsodiya (1961) ... aka Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961)
• Pervyj paren (1959) ... aka First Lad, The (1959)
• Dumka (1957)
• Natalya Ushvij (1957)
• Zolotye ruki (1957) ... aka Golden Hands (1957)
• Andriyesh (1954)
• Moldovskaya skazka (1951)

Parajanov's life story provides (quite loosely) the basis for the 2006 novel Stet by the American author James Chapman.

• [1] Official Site (Parajanov.com)
• [2] Sergei Parajanov Museum
• Exhibition of collages and projection of films from the 04/20/07 to the 05/20/07 at the Musée d'art moderne de Saint-Etienne