The Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was founded in Hollywood in 2010 by Martiros M. Vartanov (Boy with a Movie Camera), the disciple of Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937-2009), to champion their legacy.
The first joint Parajanov/Vartanov film retrospective and art exhibition was held at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival in 2012.
In 2014, Martiros M. Vartanov worked with Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation, and L’Immagine Ritrovata, on the restoration of Paradjanov’s masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates, which premiered at Festival de Cannes, TIFF and NYFF where Martiros presented the 2014 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award to Scorsese.
In 2018, the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute worked with The Criterion Collection on the Blu-ray/DVD release of Parajanov’s Sayat Nova and Vartanov’s The Color of Armenian Land, which also became available on The Criterion Channel in 2019.
The institute’s current project, the restoration of Vartanov’s masterwork Parajanov: The Last Spring at UCLA, has earned the support of Grammy-winning rock band System of a Down and Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola.
The Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Awards and it’s annual Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival — DOC LA — have honored such luminaries as Academy Award ® winning actresses Emma Thompson, Marion Cotillard, Susan Sarandon, Cate Blanchett, as well as Jean Vigo, Mardik Martin, Angela Bassett, Usher, Alfred Molina, Ice-T, Emilio Rivera, Mark Ruffalo, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author William Saroyan.
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