About this Event
In conjunction with Hyle - Dark Light by Amin Bagheri, Ab-Anbar presents the third episode of a special film screening series dedicated to the late Iranian master Nasser Taghvai. Introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht, this Saturday's screening will show Parajanov – The Last Collage by Ruben Gevorkyants and Krikor Hamel.
“When this was made, he had been dead for five years. His Chagallian spirit was still flying through the streets of Yerevan and Tbilisi, where the gorgeous black-and-white of this film was shot. It is in those alleys that Parajanov comes back to life. The film was made four years after the dismal fall of the Soviet system – a system that proved its utter stupidity, among countless other things, by imprisoning this woolly, rolling ball of life. Yet his voice lives on, speaking fluent French. And while it might take a few minutes to get used to it, the essence of the words – drawn from Parajanov’s own writings – strikes straight at the heart. Various dignitaries appear, and they all come across as more sincere than one expects in talking head interviews. The work of Ruben Gevorkyants and Krikor Hamel delves deep into Parajanov's cinema – the naked hymns to beauty, with a violence of emotion in which pomegranates explode like grenades and stain Armenian fabrics with the blood of the poet.” – Ehsan Khoshbakht
Ehsan Khoshbakht is a film curator and filmmaker. He serves as the co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna and curates the retrospective section of the Locarno Film Festival 2026. His latest film, Celluloid Underground, premiered at the London Film Festival 2023, and his newly edited volume, Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema, 1945-1960, was published in August 2025 by Les Éditions de l’Œil in Paris.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Ab-Anbar Gallery, 34 Mortimer Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 12.00
