We are beyond thrilled to announce a collaboration we have long hoped to see come to fruition! Please join us at the Tomorrow Theater (3530 SE Division St) on Sunday, November 23rd, at 4 pm for a showing of the renowned and visually stunning The Color of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov. Guests will be invited to enjoy this famous work of cinematic art while also enjoying the fragrance accompaniment built by Mark Buxton for Moth & Rabbit, a fragrance brand out of Berlin that builds all of their fragrances to develop with two specific scetions of the films they are named after.
Mark Buxton, as a master perfumer, could be likened to influential and renowned figures in other mediums, and if we were to liken his work to that of acclaimed directors, we would likely choose Stanley Kubrick or Paul Thomas Anderson. After completing classical training and working for many world-renowned luxury brands (he is still most well-known for his collaborations with Comme des Garçons), he was one of the first classically trained noses to branch out into the more abstract world of independent or avant-garde niche working with brands like Moth & Rabbit in his signature style; exhibiting such a high level of skill as to be capable of making expertly structured and timed fragrances (to the point where they can change and develop in real time alongside scenes from films, for example) that are clearly professionally composed, while also subtly pushing the artform forward with nuanced ingeniuties.
The Colour of Pomegranates is a biographical film based on the life of the Armenian ashug (an Armenian word for a singer/poet/bard) Sayat-Nova that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film features minimal dialogue, using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death, and Death. Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. According to Frank Williams, Parajanov's film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in face of oppression and persecution: "There are specific images that are highly charged—blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate into a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia; dyers lifting hanks of wool out of vats in the colours of the national flag, and so on" while Parajanov said his inspiration was "the Armenian illuminated miniature," and that he "wanted to create that inner dynamic that comes from inside the picture, the forms and the dramaturgy of colour."
Tomorrow Theater is the Portland Art Museum’s PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow’s lively creative hub for cultural snackers who are not content to be contained. Since November 2023, the Tomorrow Theater has been home to a multi-media feast of creators and content pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. The Tomorrow is a space where local and global artists collaborate across disciplines, and multi-interest audiences co-mingle and collide to experience cinematic storytelling in all its many forms. Located at 3530 Division Street (just a minute’s walk West of Fumerie!) in Portland, Oregon, the theater has lived many previous lives as a vaudeville house, Spanish-language, independent, and X-rated theater. Taking the eclectic 100-year-old spirit of the space into account, our new space promotes the idea of “cinema unbound” through a mix of artist-driven signature screenings, events, happenings, performances, and discussions changing for whom, by whom, and how cinematic stories are told now — and tomorrow.
Join us and the Tomorrow Theater to watch, and be immersed by fragrant art into scenes from, The Colour of Pomegranates at 4 pm on Sunday, November 23rd. Following the film, we invite attendees to visit our boutique at 3584 SE Division until 8 pm where we will raffle away free 12ml bottles of The Colour of Pomegranate and further explore Moth & Rabbit as a group!
