Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Director: Sergei Parajanov, Sergei Parajanov

1965 / 97min / 35mm

After years of towing the line and making films obedient to the drab dictates of the official Soviet state style of “Socialist realism,” Parajanov made a decisive, revolutionary break with this vividly colorful and occasionally downright hallucinatory period piece, a glorious explosion of unfettered imagination. Setting his scene in the Hutsel communities of Ukraine’s Carpathian mountains, Paranjanov renders the simple story of the tragic love between two young villagers torn apart by a blood feud between their families as a dizzy spree of go-for-broke experimentation and heady mythic/religious imagery. “Ethnographic cinema run wild… Overwhelmingly beautiful… Ecstatic.”—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Post-screening discussion with Ukrainian film scholar, Dr. Yuri Shevchuk (Columbia University) on Sunday, January 22nd at 6:15p