On Saturday, August 3, 2024, at 13.30 Kyiv time, EEDI hosted an online discussion “100 Years of Serhiy Parajanov”, within the framework of its project “Ukraine and South Asia: Open Dialogues” supported by the International Renaissance Foundation. Speakers for the event were: Pylyp Illienko (Ukraine), Ashoke Vishwanathan (India) and Yuri Mechitov (Georgia), moderated by Mridula Ghosh. As a guest, Olexander Polishchuk, Ambassador of Ukraine to India was present. Born to a family of cinematographers, Pylyp Illienko is the eldest son of Yuriy Illienko, the famous director and actress Lyudmila Yefimenko. He is an actor, screenplay writer, cine critic and producer. He also has a background in International Law. He acted in films such as “Lisova pisnya – Mavka”, “Prayer for Hetman Mazepa”, “Legend about Princess Olha”, “Ave Maria”, “Swan Lake. The Zone” and others. He produced such films as Prayer for Hetan Mazepa new version (2010), Toloka (2020), Slovo House. Unfinished Novel (2021). Pylyp’s life vibrates around cinema, and he also has fond memories of Parajanov. Pylyp Illienko’s company won the bid from the National Public Radio and TV broadcasting company “Suspilne”, and finished making the documentary “A Sentimental Journey to the Parajanov Planet”, which will be premiered soon. Ashoke Viswanathan is a renowned film maker from India. He is also a professor and associated with the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute and an occasional lecturer at Jadavpur University. His award-winning features and documentaries such as 2014’s “The Lighthouse, The Ocean and The Sea”, an exploration of the intellectual relationships between Rabindranath Tagore, Romain Rolland and Kalidas Nag. Two of Viswanathan’s films have won national awards: his debut film “Shunya Theke Shuru” and “Kichu Sanglap Kichu Prolap”. He has also directed commercial films like “Sesh Sanghat”, starring mainstream actors Jaya Prada and Jackie Shroff, and “Gumshuda” in Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil (“Vaira Kolaigal”), a whodunit based on Sherlock Holmes, targeted at a mass audience. He has served as the Chairperson of the Jury for non-feature films for the National Film Awards. Three of his feature films and two of his short features have been included in the INDIAN PANORAMA sections of IFFI ’94, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2005. His films have been shown at the Commonwealth Film Festival, Manchester, the Pyongyang International Film Festival, the Dhaka International Film Festival, and the Ipswich Film Festival, among others. Viswanathan has represented India at the Cambridge Seminar on contemporary British writing, held at Downing College, Cambridge (1997). Tbilisi based photographer Yuri Mechitov’s photos have instilled newer shades of eccentricity and surreality to Parajanov. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Yuri started photography at an early age of eight years only. Author of more than 90 photo exhibitions worldwide. Yuri worked with Parajanov during the later years, from 1978 till his demise. He has authored two important works: “Sergei Parajanov-Chronicles of a Dialogue” published in 2009, and “Sergei Parajanov” published in 2014 in English, French and Russian languages. Yuri has a special place in his heart for the maestro. The moderator of the event is Dr. Mridula Ghosh. Born in Kolkata, educated in Presidency College, she holds a PhD from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Formerly with the UN, now she is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and chairs the East European Development Institute. She authored the first ever translations from East European languages into English and Bengali: “Ukraina Alpona – Ukrainskyi Vizerunok”, (anthology of 28 poets); Lesya Ukrainka’s drama ‘Lisova Pisnya’ (Forest Song) – Aaranya Sangeet, Bulgarian Geo Milev’s magnum opus “Septemvri”, and others. Her columns “Diary of Resilience” in “The Week” are on the war against Ukraine. Being well versed in Indian classical dance and theater, she founded the Federation of Indian Dance in Ukraine and the Tagore Center, launched cultural projects: “Tagore’s creative world” and “Gandhian resilience”. To her, Parajanov’s masterpiece “Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors” opened up Ukraine and since then she has been fascinated with this country and the Carpathian Mountains. She knew the wife of Parajanov, Svitlana Scherbatyuk, who shared stories of the genius with her.