Unfinished film (screen tests to the forbidden film) by Sergei Parajanov, an attempt of nonfigurative representation of the tragedy of war and simultaneously an eroticized experiment with color, sound and texture influenced by the beauty of the Kyiv city, which fascinated Parajanov. After the screen tests were finished, the studio management decided to stop the shooting of a “generally impressionistic film, through which the idea of pacifism runs”. Only the 15-minute screen tests survived thanks to the ruse of the director of photography Oleksandr Antipenko, who gave them for his graduate work.

In 1988 the sketches for the film were shown as part of a retrospective of Parajanov’s works at the International Film Festival in Munich, after which the world film press praised Kyiv Frescoes as the “ground-breaking discovery” and a “splendid avant-garde sample”.

Dovzhenko Film Studio, 1966

Duration: 00:15:01

Language: silent

Directed by Sergei Parajanov

Written by Sergei Parajanov, Dmytro Pavlychko

Cinematography by Oleksandr Antipenko

Design by Oleksandr Kudrya

Starring: Tengiz Archvadze, Antonina Leftii, Viya Artmane, Afanasii Kochetkov, Mykola Hrinko, Mykhaylo Hluzskyi​