Date of Birth

Nickname

Mini Biography

Documentary oeuvre of Mikhail Vartanov began with the wordless Tsvet armyanskoy zemli (1969) "The Color of Armenian Land" featuring the world famous behind-the-scenes episodes of Sergei Paradjanov's landmark "Sayat Nova" (1968). Vartanov's correspondence with the imprisoned Paradjanov and the outspoken criticism of Armenia's corrupt film industry resulted in a blacklist shortly thereafter. Vartanov's screenplays and films, such as "Autumn Pastoral" Osennyaya pastoral (1971) and Kajaran (1974), were suppressed, unmentioned by press and blocked from submission to foreign film festivals. He was fired from the latter film and he wouldn't direct again until 9 years later.

In those years, Vartanov exquisitely lensed Artavazd Peleshian's classic "Seasons of the Year" Vremena goda (1975) and Gennadi Melkonian's hit "The Mulberry Tree" Shelkovitsa (1979). In the 1980s, Vartanov's writings were translated into several languages and published worldwide including the prestigious French magazine Cahier du Cinema in Paris.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vartanov directed the trilogy "Erased Faces" Jnjevatz demqer (1987), "Minas: A Requiem" Minas: Rekviem (1989) and his masterpiece Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) - a staggering drama about the man whom the regime persecuted but who stood his ground and triumphed.

The following decade Vartanov spent conducting film and photo experiments in his Hollywood apartment to be seen in Erased Faces II (2006) by Martin Vartanov with whom he is producing "Evrika" (2007), a film based on a method they call "direction of the undirected action." As for the films Vartanov made between 1960s and 1989, they have not been shown to the general public and remain in the archives in Armenia and Moscow.

Spouse

Trade Mark

Poetic documentaries, featuring brief or no narration, lensed with Russian 35mm Konvas cameras.

Trivia

Has a big nose and wears intentionally deformed hats and berets.

Best friend of the legendary Sergei Parajanov who considered Mikhail Vartanov to be the only authentic expert of his art and who was one of the very few of Paradjanov's (many) friends to passionately campaign for his release from the Soviet GULAG - their brave prison correspondence later became a chapter of Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992).

Vartanov refers to his method as "direction of undirected action".

Oscar winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient William Saroyan nicknamed him the "eyemo-man" (after the early 20th century 35mm movie camera Eyemo)

Cinematographer of the Year at the Sixth Annual USSR Film Festival (1973); Vartanov received the award for "Song of Eternity" a film he disliked. USSR film festival was inaugurated in 1968 and each year was held in a different Soviet capital.

Graduate of the world's oldest film school VGIK in Moscow, Russia, where his teachers were Anatoli Golovnya (cinematographer of Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1926 classic "Mother") and Boris Volchek (cinematographer of Mikhail Romm's 1937 classic "Lenin in October").

Blacklisted and never given any honors in his homeland, Armenia, (where Vartanov created some of the country's most important Cinema) and his work has only been recognized overseas. In Moscow, in 1993, Vartanov had the distinction of receiving the first and the only Russian Academy Award for a film made in Armenia and, in US, in 1995, he accepted the Golden Gate Award from America's oldest Film Festival - San Francisco International; past recipients of the award were Roman Polanski in 1958, Andrei Tarkovsky in 1962, Satyajit Ray in 1957, Roberto Rossellini in 1959 and Vittorio De Sica in 1959.

Grew his beard after the death of his mother. Neither his wife nor his children have seen him without it.

Diploma film "The Monologue of the Mask" won Dakar's Golden Antelope Award and was continually screened for new generations of cinematography students in Moscow for over 15 years until the print was damaged.

King of Norway, Harald the Fifth, and Vartanov were born on the same day, February 21, 1937; King had a son and a daughter and Vartanov had a son and a daughter.

Father of Martin Vartanov

Personal Quotes

"To me, it seems, the Cinema of Sergei Parajanov began not with the 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,' as many think, but with the 'Color of Pomegranate.' Probably, besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until the 'Color of Pomegranate,' not counting the generally unaccepted language of the 'Andalusian Dog' by Bunuel."

Where Are They Now

(April 2003) 1st public appearance in almost a decade at American Film Institute's Russian International Film Festival in Hollywood; Vartanov, William Friedkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter Bogdanovich presented "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," "Ivan The Terrible," "Battleship Potemkin" and "The Ballad of Soldier," respectively

(May 2004) Attended the ceremony of the unveiling of the monument on the shooting site of D.W. Griffith's "In Old California" (1910) - the first movie ever made in Hollywood.

(February 2007) Member of the jury at the Navarra International Documentary Film Festival responsible for presenting Spain's first annual Jean Vigo Award.

(2007) Member of the jury at the Beverly Hills Film Festival

Mikhail Vartanov (1985)

cinematographer Seasons OF THE YEAR ...