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Still from Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) courtesy of Janus Films

Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour: Sergei Parajanov

Art Films and Special Screenings

  • Saturday, March 8, 2025
  • 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
  • East Building Auditorium
  • Films
  • In-person
  • Registration Required
  • Drop-In Registration

Introduced by Cecilia Cenciarelli, Il Cinema Ritrovato co-director and head of special projects at the Cineteca di Bologna and Martiros M. Vartanov, Parajanov-Vartanov Institute. 

Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors beautifully combines folkloric pageantry, fairy tale mysticism, and frenetic, hallucinatory cinematography in an epic story of lost love. Steeped in the earthy atmosphere of the Carpathian Mountains, Shadows was filmed by Parajanov and cinematographer Yuri Ilyenko with an eye for constantly innovative camera movements and vivid color; and suffused by Hutsul culture in the form of composer Myroslav Skoryk’s collage-like score, which brings together Ukrainian folk melodies with modernist, experimental orchestration. (Sergei Parajanov, 1965, DCP, Ukrainian with English subtitles, 97 minutes)

Preceded by a recently restored version of the renowned but rarely screened documentary Parajanov, The Last Spring. Made under the prohibitive conditions of war-torn Armenia, Mikhail Vartanov tells of his imprisoned friend who was persecuted by the KGB at the peak of his artistic power. (Mikhail Vartanov, 1992, DCP, Russian, Armenian, Georgian, and Ukrainian with English subtitles, 55 minutes)

These presentations will close the fifth Mid-Atlantic edition of the Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour (March 5-9, 2025) film festival, taking place across the Washington area.

This program is part of a collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute at the Embassy of Italy and the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland. Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour is an initiative of the Italian program and the program in cinema and media studies at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, in partnership with the Bologna Film Archive (Cineteca di Bologna). Special thanks to Mauro Resmini of UMD and Guy Borlee, artistic director of the film festival.

Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors was restored in 4K by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in collaboration with the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre and in association with the Dovzhenko Film Studio. Special thanks to Daniel Bird and Łukasz Ceranka. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Part of the ongoing film series Art Films and Special Screenings