FOMO presents The Hidden Colour of Pomegranates: Tbilisi Film Premiere and Discussion

SPECIAL EVENT: THE HIDDEN COLOR OF POMEGRANATES

With special guest Daniel Bird in person - screening for the first time in Georgia

FOMO Cinema is delighted to welcome writer, curator and filmmaker Daniel Bird for a unique evening exploring the outtakes, screen and camera tests from Sergei Parajanov's THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES.

Few films have inspired as much fascination, scholarship and debate as Parajanov's 1969 masterpiece. But what most audiences have never had the chance to see are the images absent from the finished film: camera tests, alternative takes, and whole fragments omitted from official releases.

Over the past decade, Daniel Bird has led the painstaking restoration of this material from the original camera negatives, working with archives across Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and beyond as part of a broader effort to preserve the cinematic heritage of the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Ukraine. His restoration work has brought long-lost Parajanov films back into circulation and has been presented internationally by institutions including the Centre Pompidou, MoMA, UNESCO, the Sydney Biennale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Maxim Gorki Theater,  International Film Festival Rotterdam and Il Cinema Ritrovato.

These remarkable fragments offer a rare glimpse into Parajanov's creative process. We see scenes explored from different angles, costumes and compositions evolving before our eyes, and images that were abandoned or altered before the film reached audiences. They also tell another story: how Parajanov's original SAYAT NOVA was renamed THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES and then reshaped by Soviet bureaucrats, and how much of Parajanov's original vision remained hidden for decades.

Now, for the first time, this material returns to Tbilisi, the city where Parajanov was born.

These remarkable fragments offer a window into the geographical, architectural and spiritual landscape of the South Caucasus under Soviet rule; the faces of film workers glimpsed before and after camera slate boards; and imagery, often sexual, which Parajanov himself edited out of his director’s cut.

Now, for the first time, this material returns to Tbilisi, the city where Parajanov was born.

Following the screening, Daniel Bird will tell the story of the recovery and digitization of this archival material, the challenges of remastering and exhibiting Soviet-era cinema, and what these rediscovered images reveal about one of the most visionary filmmakers who ever lived.

Whether you've seen THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES once or one hindred times, this is a rare opportunity to encounter one of cinema's greatest masterpieces from an entirely new perspective.

20:00 Doors Open
20:30 Outtakes and presentation by Daniel Bird
21:30 Short intermission
21:40 Audience Q&A and film discussion
22:30 Networking drinks in FOMO Lounge Bar

This special event forms part of Cage In Search of a Nightingale and is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.