Hakob Hovnatanyan
Adventures in Eastern Europe: a cult cinema playlist from Dan Bird
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11m
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1967 • Armenia/USSR
After completing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and before embarking on The Colour of Pomegranates, the great Sergei Parajanov produced this exquisite miniature about the work of Hakob Hovnatanyan, a nineteenth-century Armenian portraitist revered as “the Raphael of Tbilisi”. Parajanov tenderly isolates fragments of Hovnatanyan’s work, creating a study in visual patterning and rhythm, before cutting to disarming staged vignettes and footage of contemporary Tbilisi street life. A suitably poetic tribute from one great Armenian artist to another.
HAKOB HOVNATANYAN • Հակոբ Հովնաթանյան
Written and directed by Sergei Parajanov
Cinematography by Karen Mesyan
Music by Stepan Shakaryan
With Russian intertitles and English subtitles
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