PELECHIAN PROJECT
Pelechian Project: Artavazd Pelechian, the Father of Distance Montage
Artavazd Pelechian was born in pre-war Armenia, and is one of the heirs to Soviet cinema of the 1920s and 30s. His cinema continues in the tradition of Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein. In the 1960s, he developed an innovative editing technique called distance montage. The Pelechian Project , made up of five short films, is a signature piece of his work, shown at Cannes Classics in a restored version.
Distance montage, as it was conceived by Artavazd Pelechian, particularly involves a counterpoint between image and sound. This shift creates a poetic quality — a sort of surrealist limbo — that stems from images presented with no linear structure, and from a rhythmic editing style resembling a musical structure.
Dziga Vertov made Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the manifesto for his concept of “cinema-eye”, while Artavazd Pelechian did the same for distance montage with the Pelechian Project.
The first short film, Land of People (1966), captures on film the beauty of the world shaped by human hands through their labor. This poetry slowly unfolds within a big city in the midst of a day’s work.
Then came The Beginning (1967) which focused on the October 1917 Russian Revolution, and We (1969), the name of which refers to the Armenian people and the genocide to which they were subjected. Pelechian also brought archive footage to life in a whole new way. In 1970, The Inhabitants featured only animals with absolutely no people in it.
Finally, The Seasons (1975). This documentary-poem portrays a community of Armenian farmers and explores their relationship with their environment. Armenian folk music blends with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in a radical free-form arrangement.
Presented by Coproduction Office and restored in partnership with the Cineteca di Bologna under the supervision of Artavazd Pelechian. French distributor: Potemkine Films.
The 4K scan was carried out at the Public Television Company of Armenia, with the exception of The Inhabitants, which was scanned in 2K at Belarusfilm in Minsk.
Restoration and color grading were carried out by the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.
In association with: Cinema Foundation of Armenia, Public Television Company of Armenia, VGIK and Belarusfilm. Additional support from: ZDF/ARTE, ArMa Media Production LLC, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Screening in the presence of director and documentary filmmaker Artavazd Pelechian.
