Andrey Tarkovsky is considered by many to be one of the greatest filmmakers the world has ever seen. Although he made just eight feature films before his life was cut tragically short by cancer, at the age of 54, each is an artistic masterpiece and a major landmark in world cinema. This book presents a portfolio of polaroids produced in association with the Florence based Tarkovsky Foundation archive, which is maintained by the filmmakers son Andrey Tarkovsky. Taken in Russia and Italy between 1979 and 1984, ranging from romantic landscapes and studied portraits to private shots of the auteurs family and friends including late distinguished scripwriter Tonino Guerra all the photographs demonstrate the singular compositional and visual-poetic ability of this master image-maker. Many of the polaroids that were created in Russia complement and extend the personal imagery of the film Mirror (1974). Equally rewarding cross-fertilization is apparent in the images that were taken in Italy while he was travelling with Tonino Guerra and preparing Nostalgia (1983). Indeed, from when Michelangelo Antonioni first gave Tarkovsky a Polaroid camera in the 1970s, it rarely left his side.
This book pairs Tarkovsky's polaroids and projected scenes from his movies with photo collages and other works by Sergei Parajanov on loan from Parajanov Museum in Yerevan, Armenia, founded in 1988 when Parajanov moved there from Tbilisi, Georgia. Sergei Parajanov is one of the most daring and visionary directors to emerge from the former Soviet Union. Legends such as Fellini, Antonioni and Tarkovsky crowned Parajanov with titles like genius, magician and a master.