"I am not a dissident. I am an artist." Sergei Paradjanov was a giant bear of a man, intoxicated by beauty and life. Referred to simply as "Maestro", and revered worldwide by directors such as Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, and Tarkovsky, his exuberant lifestyle and his insistence on the integrity of his art landed him repeatedly in jail, denied the right to make films. Despite this, he created masterpieces that have become acknowledged as the defining works of three countries' cinema: Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia. This brilliant film, not content simply to tell Paradjanov's extraordinary life story, evokes in its pyrotechnic kaleidoscopic style the joyous artistic soul of the master himself. It is an unforgettable, ecstatic hymn to one of cinema's greatest, if still far too little known, giants.
