Susan Sarandon Wins 2018 Parajanov-Vartanov Award

The 2018 Parajanov-Vartanov Award went to Academy-award winner Susan Sarandon and American Mirror - Intimations of Immortality directed by Arthur Balder and produced by David Shara, premiered at DOC LA, Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival, presented by the Parajanov-Vartanov Institute.

Past year the 2017 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored the work of Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard and environmental documentary Girl and Typhoons had its LA premiere at the institute's DOC LA (Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival).

Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson was honored with the 2016 Parajanov-Vartanov Award at Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival - DOC LA, where David Lavallee's Canadian documentary To The Ends of the Earth, which she narrated, also received the International Environmental Film Award.

Francis Ford Coppola congratulated the 2015 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award recipients, the Grammy-winning rock band System Of A Down for their historic justice world tour Wake Up the Souls. The event at Chateau Marmont Hollywood on 21 October 2015 benefited the restoration of Parajanov: The Last Spring film trilogy at UCLA. Agnieszka Holland has also released a statement for the occasion.

Martin Scorsese accepted the 2014 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award on behalf of his World Cinema Project and The Film Foundation for the restoration of The Color of Pomegranates and introduced the masterpiece at the 52nd New York Film Festival. NYFF first screened the film in 1980, and hosted Sergei Paradjanov in 1988.

The institute's founder Martiros Vartanov, who worked on the restoration with Cineteca di Bologna and L'Immagine Ritrovata, presented the award on October 2, 2014, at Lincoln Center. The restored film premiered in May at Festival de Cannes, as well as at Italy's 28th Il Cinema Ritrovato Film Festival with Mikhail Vartanov's Parajanov: The Last Spring. The North American premiere was at TIFF, Toronto Int'l Film Festival. The US premiere, with Martiros Vartanov's last film, was at The Academy at LACMA in Hollywood.

The 2013 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award honored Oscar-winner William Saroyan (1908-1981) and was presented to his granddaugther Cream Kate Saroyan by Oscar-winner Jon Voight at Four Seasons Los Angeles on May 12. William Saroyan - one of the 20th century's greatest authors - won the Pulitzer Prize for the Time of Your Life (1939) and an Academy Award for The Human Comedy (1943).

Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award in 2012 was presented on April 29 at Four Seasons at Beverly Hills to Mardik Martin - the legendary screenwriter on Martin Scorsese's seminal films Mean Streets and Raging Bull starring Robert De Niro. Mardik Martin is among the screenwriters on WGA's list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.

Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award in 2011 honored the French film icon Jean Vigo (1905-1934) and was presented to his daughter and Paris-based film critic Luce Vigo by Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight at Four Seasons at Beverly Hills on April 10, 2011.

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