Once described as "an Armenian, born in Tbilisi, incarcerated in a Russian prison for being a Ukrainian nationalist", filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov seemed pre-destined to get up Soviet noses everywhere. His fantastically beautiful, avant garde films -- in particular The Colour Of Pomegranates (1969) -- were ruthlessly suppressed, and he spent two periods in prison, including five years hard labour, as a result of his "subversive views and lifestyle".Such suppression meant he completed few films, and they were practically unknown internationally until Gorbachev's Glasnost of the late '80s. The highly conceptual The Colour Of Pomegranates is nominally the biography of Sayat Nova, a revered 18th century Armenian poet and musician. However the film is really a beautifully stylised, enigmatic imagining of the creative process of poetry itself -- less about a specific poet, and more about how poets, and poems, come into being. A series of mysterious tableaux and vignettes revolve around images of books and religious iconography, and the whole film has the look (and colours) of illuminated manuscripts or Russian icon paintings. The highly recommended season will show all of Paradjanov's available films, including the fantastical Ashik Kerib (1988) and The Legend Of Suram Fortress (1984).

NB: runs from 01/03 till 15/03. This season is part of the Paradjanov Festival 2010 which runs concurrently in London and in Bristol.