*Please note that Friends of AFA member discounts are not applicable for this special live performance.
** All attendees of the live performance are entitled to attend the talk You Are Fire – Research, Practice and Process by Daniel Bird happening at 2pm before the performance. More details can be found below.

Performer: Daniel Bird
Runtime: Approx 90 mins
Language: No Dialogue, English
Rating: R18

Synopsis

You Are Fire is a collaborative project envisioned by Elvin Brandhi and Daniel Bird.

This live film-performance reworks newly scanned 35mm outtakes and screen tests from the shooting of Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates or Sayat Nova (1969) into 15 film miniatures. Originally conceived as a film-poem about the life of the poet-ashugh, Arutin Sayadyan, each miniature grows out of textures – Armenian, Georgian and Azeri architecture, landscapes and objects – enabling the authenticity of an era to emerge. Using Tigran Mansurian and Yuri Sayadian’s original soundtrack as raw material, the musical heritage of Sayat Nova is brought to the fore, reimagining a performance by an ashugh, or singer-poet bard, at the early 21st-century crossroads of analogue and digital media.

Reconciling West and East, You Are Fire explores Armenia as Europe’s avant-garde in Asia. The performance project is developed from the installation Temple of Cinema #1: Sayat Nova Outtakes. In 2019, it opened Art Directions at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Originally a collaboration between the Armenian Cinema Foundation in Yerevan and Fixafilm in Poland, it formed part of a restoration programme, the Hamo Bek-Nazarov Project, encompassing archives and institutions from the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Ukraine.

Working with both archival footage and audio samples, Brandhi and Bird subject the working materials of The Colour of Pomegranates to decollage and collage, resulting in a profane, live, shadow-film, where the subconscious is brought to the fore, along with all that was repressed or denied, not just by the Soviet censor, but Parajanov himself.

You Are Fire – Research, Practice and Process
17 January 2026, 2 – 3 pm | Oldham Theatre

In 2018, Daniel Bird began work on a project involving the scanning, cataloguing and studying of approximately one hundred cans of film held by the National Archives of Armenia, featuring outtakes, screen and camera tests from Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates (1969). Through this process, You Are Fire: A Live Performance of Sayat Nova Outtakes was created, a live audio-visual performance that breathes new life into the rediscovered material.

Daniel Bird, the guest curator of the Retrospective: Sergei Parajanov at the Asian Film Archive, will share more about his research journey, creative process, and vision behind this unique work. Discover how film fragments, readings, and archival documents from film scripts and telegrams are combined to present this work that reimagines Parajanov’s iconic The Colour of Pomegranates.

About Guest Curator and Performer

Daniel Bird worked with the World Cinema Project on restorations of The Colour of Pomegranates and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. He produced Parajanov Triptych, and devised Temple of Cinema #1: Sayat Nova Outtakes. You Are Fire is a live performance developed from the installation Temple of Cinema #1: Sayat Nova Outtakes.

This event is part of the programme Retrospective: Sergei Parajanov. For more screenings, please click here. 

Friends of AFA members, please read the membership guide on how to purchase your discounted tickets and redeem your complimentary tickets.

Oldham Theatre’s opening hours

For further assistance, please contact us at ticketing@asianfilmarchive.org 

Important Notice:

Do note that Oldham Theatre operates on a free seating arrangement. Doors will open 20 minutes before showtime so arrive early to choose a seat and avoid disrupting the screenings as AFA does not play ads and screenings will start promptly.

All patrons are encouraged to purchase your tickets online. If you choose to purchase tickets or merchandise at Oldham Theatre’s box office, cashless payment is preferred.

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T&Cs
Concession tickets apply to Students (Local & Overseas), Full-time National Servicemen (NSF), Senior Citizens (55 years and above) only.

Please check film ratings before purchase of tickets. Please note that you may be asked to present your ID at the door (this applies to concession tickets as well). Only physical photographic identification is allowed, digital copies of identification are not allowed. AFA reserves the right to turn away any members of the public without physical photographic identification.

Upon confirmation of your order for Tickets, no exchange of Tickets will be made under any circumstances and Tickets are not transferable. No refund on Tickets will be made under any circumstances except due to cancellation of the event. The resale of Tickets at any price is prohibited.