Armenia
At least four countries — Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia — claim him as their own. Yet he, like every true genius, belongs to no one and to everyone.
The Color of Pomegranates was the film that made him famous, but also the one that led to a ban on his filmmaking, as it was interpreted as an open critique of Soviet power. Accused of homosexuality and rape, in 1974 he was sentenced to five years in prison. Upon release, without the possibility of directing, he created a large body of artworks, most notably his collages featuring motifs of the Mona Lisa.
The last film he directed, an adaptation of Mikhail Lermontov’s story Ashik Kerib, was dedicated to his late friend Andrei Tarkovsky. Three days after Parajanov was sentenced, Tarkovsky wrote to the Central Committee:
“Artistically, there are very few people in the world who could replace Parajanov. He is guilty — guilty of his solitude. We are guilty for not thinking of him every day, and for failing to recognize the significance of the master.“
While imprisoned, he created more than 800 drawings and collages, a large number of miniature sculptures, and six talers — relief coins fashioned from aluminum bottle caps. A silver replica of one of these talers is now awarded as a prize at the International Film Festival in Yerevan, while many of his other works are housed in the Sergei Parajanov Museum.