Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant’s daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights—but not before he’s got the daughter to promise not to marry till his return.

The last completed work by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov (The Colour of Pomegranates) splendidly reimagines the traditions, customs and folklore of Azerbaijan in staggering and semi-surreal visual poetry. Richly drawn, and politically subversive, a stunning, sensational fairy tale.