LEGEND

• Theatre

after motives from the world of Sergei Parajanov / German by Irina Bondas/ directed by Kirill Serebrennikov / world premiere / in coproduction with Ruhrtriennale 2024 and Kirill and Friends Company

„I will take my revenge on the world through love.” Sergei Parajanov

“LEGEND” presents the world of the famous, in the West largely unknown filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. The dazzling multiplicity and surreal creativity of his films are an inspiration, most recently for superstar Lady Gaga. “Legends” does not present the biopic of an important artist. Instead, Serebrennikov features Parajanov with poetic wit as the allegory of an artist, a poet, a wanderer, a fighter and a rebel. The result is a multifaceted view of a life between passion, eccentricity, beauty and repression. Ten legends open up an infinite multiverse of cultures with room for the singularity of every single human being. 

2024 is the centenary of Sergei Parajanov. Born 1924 in Tbilisi, he grew up in the Soviet Union, where he became a film director, taking a stand in his life and his art against nomenclature and repression. As a result, he spent time in prison and hard labor camps and was banned from making films. A wide array of artists, including Tarkowski, Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, Kurosawa, Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Françoise Sagan and Yves Saint Laurent, admired his surreally poetic works and called for his release from prison, in most cases to no avail. Parajanov died in 1990 in Armenia, just months before Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine gained their independence and the Soviet Union collapsed.

Kirill Serebrennikov has directed three acclaimed productions with international casts at Thalia Theater: “The Black Monk”, “The Wij” and “BAROCCO”. “LEGEND” is his fourth and final work at Thalia Theater.

world premiere 30th November 2024, Thalia Theater

in coproduction with Ruhrtriennale 2024 and Kirill and Friends Company