With a playful associative montage, Parajanov offers an overview of portrait paintings by Hakob Hovnatanyan, the ‘Raphael of Tiflis’. Combining sights and sounds from both Hovnatanyan’s paintings and 19th century Tbilisi, Parajanov’s short documentary can be seen as a direct precursor to The Colour of Pomegranates (1969), his masterpiece.