Mikhail Vartanov (Russian: Михаил Вартанов, Armenian: Միքայել Վարդանով, February 21, 1937 – December 29, 2009) was a Soviet filmmaker and cinematographer who made significant contribution to world cinema with the documentary films Parajanov: The Last Spring and Seasons.
He was first acquainted with Parajanov's work in 1964, having watched the latter's film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and the test footage of the unfinished Kiev Frescoes as a student at Moscow’s Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.
The recently declassified document proved that it was that letter in support of Parajanov that prompted the intensified harassment that Vartanov endured, and his subsequent firing from the Armenfilm Studios 4 months after Paradjanov's imprisonment.
In a letter to the imprisoned Parajanov, Vartanov wrote, quoting his favorite poet Boris Pasternak: "the time will come and the power of meanness and malice would be overcome by the spirit of kindness.
[7] Mikhail Vartanov's last documentary trilogy consisted of The Color of Armenian Land (1969), Minas: A Requiem (1989), and the influential film Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992).