Whereâs it on? kinoklassikafoundation.org
The Colour of Pomegranates (1969)
The new year hasnât been knocking us flat with good news, but the announcement this week that the Kino Klassika Foundation is launching a new streaming service in February is something film fans will want to put their arms around. The current streaming landscape isnât hot on Russian cinema, but Klassiki promises to offer UK audiences a permanent library of 60 titles from Russia and the Caucasus, including both classics and more obscure gems. The initiative has come about because of the large audiences that have been drawn to the free weekly films being posted on the foundationâs website during lockdown. Those are still happening, so you can get a taste of the kind of thing Klassiki will be hosting by viewing this weekâs offering, which just happens to be one of the great Soviet-era films: Sergei Parajanovâs The Colour of Pomegranates. Not that this poetic and stylised account of the life of the 19th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova is really like anything else out there. Martin Scorsese described watching it as like âopening a door and walking into another dimension, where time has stopped and beauty has been unleashedâ.