"Shot with such an active camera we almost need seatbelts." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"Sergei Paradjanov's extraordinary merging of myth, history, poetry, ethnography, dance, and ritual. It remains one of the supreme works of the Soviet sound cinema, and even subsequent Paradjanov features have failed to dim its intoxicating splendors." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Widely considered the most important film in the history of Ukranian cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s SHADOWS OF OUR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS is a masterwork that boldly combines folkloric pageantry and frenetic, hallucinatory cinematography. Ivan, a young peasant, witnesses his father’s murder by the local miser. Years later, he falls in love with the miser’s daughter, Marichka, but her death leaves him wallowing in grief until he meets Palahna, a beautiful woman who restores his faith in life. When the ghost of Marichka begins to haunt Ivan, Palahna is driven into the arms of the local sorcerer, with tragic results. Filmed with an eye for innovative camera movements and vivid color, it is one of cinema’s singular productions, capturing the spiritual majesty of the past by creatively forging the medium’s future. (Janus Films)
Awards & Nominations
Winner - Critics Grand Prize, Mar del Plata International Film Festival
Related Event: THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu