Neptunian Maximalism Live Score
‘The Legend of Suram Fortress’
Special Restoration in collaboration with The Georgian National Film Centre & Rio Cinema
Neptunian Maximalism
Neptunian Maximalism is an experimental ensemble whose work is characterised by extended duration, large-scale form, and sustained intensity. Performing as a collective, they construct long-form compositions that unfold continuously over time rather than through discrete movements or songs.
This year sees them deliver a special commission live score for the legendary ‘The Legend of Suram Fortress’ by Sergei Parajanov at Rio Cinema to close The Judgement Hall Festival. A special restoration has been made available through our collaboration with The Georgian National Film Centre. This is set to be a once in a lifetime experience.
Across recordings and live performances, Neptunian Maximalism has developed a practice concerned with scale and endurance, producing sound that functions as a temporal and spatial presence. Their work has been presented in concert halls, festivals, and site-specific contexts, including a previous monolithic performance at The Judgement Hall later released on Voidhanger Records.
The Legend of
Suram Fortress
The Legend of Suram Fortress is one of Sergei Parajanov’s most distinctive works, constructed through visual symbolism, repetition, and formal composition rather than conventional narrative development. Drawing on Georgian folklore, the film unfolds as a sequence of carefully composed images, gestures, and tableaux, where meaning is carried through rhythm, colour, and recurrence.
For this presentation, The Legend of Suram Fortress is shown in a special restoration produced in collaboration with the Georgian National Film Centre, bringing renewed clarity and precision to Parajanov’s visual language. This restored version is presented exclusively as part of The Judgement Hall Festival.
Neptunian Maximalism was commissioned by The Judgement Hall to create a new live score specifically for this screening. Rather than treating the film as something to be accompanied or illustrated, the commission approaches sound and image as parallel structures, unfolding together over the full duration of the work. The result is a single, time-bound cinematic event in which film, sound, and space are aligned for one presentation only.
Curator’s Notes
Neptunian Maximalism was chosen for this commission because of their ability to work with scale, duration, and sustained intensity without resorting to episodic structure or illustrative gesture. Their practice is grounded in long-form continuity, making them uniquely suited to a film that operates through repetition, symbolism, and temporal suspension rather than narrative progression.
The Legend of Suram Fortress demands a musical response capable of holding pressure over time. Neptunian Maximalism’s work does not respond moment-to-moment to image; instead, it unfolds as a continuous field, allowing sound and film to coexist under shared constraints of duration and focus. This approach mirrors the internal logic of Parajanov’s cinema, where meaning accumulates gradually rather than resolving through plot.
The commission also builds on an established relationship between the ensemble and The Judgement Hall. Their previous monolithic performance at the festival, later released on Void Hanger Records, articulated a shared curatorial interest in endurance, physical sound, and total attention. Extending this dialogue into a cinematic context felt both necessary and precise, allowing the festival to close with a work that brings sound, image, and architecture into a single, unrepeated alignment.
