Wheelchair accessible, SDH captioning, English subtitling
Samizdat East European Film Festival presents a screening of Armenian director Sergei Parajanov’s final work, Ashik Kerib (აშიკ-ქერიბი), as part of its inaugural edition.
Co-directed with Georgian actor-director Dodo Abashidze, this film provides the final iteration of Parajanov's singular baroque visuality, developed in the so-called Caucasus Trilogy – together with Sayat Nova (The Colour of Pomegranates) and The Legend of the Suram Fortress. This time, Parajanov takes a popular Azerbaijani and Turkestani tale about a poor minstrel’s love for an aristocrat’s daughter as the basis for the mesmerising world he conjures on screen. Like in Parajanov's earlier films, Ashik Kerib weaponizes its consciously Orientalist style to make an appeal against soviet tyranny and ethno-religious conflict.
Content notes: Depictions of death, grief, a funeral ceremony, graphic violence (not photorealistic).
Access notes: Bright and colourful images throughout, brief flashing lights, visual storytelling throughout, music throughout, some storytelling using intertitles in Georgian.
Curated by Misha Yakovlev