Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, alternatively translated into English as Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors or Shadows of Our Ancestors, also known in English under the alternative title Wild Horses of Fire and under the mistaken title of In the Shadow of the Past, is a 1965 Ukrainian film by the filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the novel Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky that tells a "Romeo and Juliet tale" of young Ukrainian Hutsul lovers trapped on opposite sides of a Carpathian family blood feud. The film was Parajanov's first major work and earned him international acclaim for its rich use of costume and colour. The festival program from the 1966 edition of the New York Film Festival described the film as an "avant-garde, extravagant, sumptuous saga" and a "haunting work" that combined folk-songs and atonal music with fantastic camera work. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is considered to be the most internationally heralded Ukrainian film in history, and a classic of Ukrainian magical realist cinema. Plot In a small Hutsul village in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine, a young man, Ivan, falls in love with the daughter of the man who killed his father. Though their families share a bitter enmity, Ivan and Marichka have known each other since childhood. In preparation for their marriage, Ivan leaves the village to work and earn money for a household. While he is gone, Marichka accidentally slips into a river and drowns while trying to rescue a lost lamb.