This two-DVD set includes Sergei Paradjanov's 1969 masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates and a 1994 documentary, Paradjanov: A Requiem.

Paradjanov (1924-1990 has been acclaimed as the greatest Russian filmmaker to appear since the golden age of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko. His baroque masterpiece, The Color of Pomegranates, was banned in Russia for its religious sentiment and nonconformity to socialist realism. Its director, a tirelessly outspoken campaigner for human rights, was convicted on a number of trumped up charges and sentenced to five years of hard labor in the gulag. A wave or protest from the international community lead to his release in 1978.

Aesthetically the most extreme film ever made in the USSR, The Color of Pomegranates is a hallucinatory epic account of the life of the 18th century national poet Sayat Nova. It conveys the glory of what a cinema of high art can be like. Conceived as an extraordinarily complex series of painterly tableaux that recall Byzantine mosaics, the film is a dreamlike icon come-to-life of astonishing beauty and rigor. It evokes the poet's childhood and youth, his days as a troubadour at the court of King Heraclius II of Georgia, his retreat to a monastery, his old age, and his death.

There has never been a film like this magical work. Featuring Sophico Tchiaourelli, M. Alekian, V. Galestian, G. Gueguetchkori, and O. Minassian.

Color, 88 minutes, in Russian, with English subtitles.

The documentary, Paradjanov: A Requiem, is an absorbing portrait of one of the most colorful and revered figures in world cinema. It offers an affectionate and insightful look at the tumultuous career of the an artist, dissident, romantic, and iconoclast.

From his early years as a protg of silent film legends Dovzhenko and Eisenstein, this documentary charts the evolution of Paradjanov's artistry, which culminated in the creation of brilliant, hallucinatory film fantasies of Ukrainian poetry and folk legends. Rather than being celebrated for his mesmerizing work, the Armenian director was branded a surrealist by Soviet authorities and imprisoned for his artistic and intellectual challenges to the reigning dogma of socialist realism.

Rare, extensive interviews with the outspoken director are laced with clips from his films, including many unavailable in the west.

1994, 57 minutes, in English and Russian, with English subtitles