Mikhail Vartanov arrived to the US with the only 35mm print in existence of Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) for the National Gallery of Art and the San Francisco International Film Festival premieres. Francis Ford Coppola later wrote that the film "exemplifies the power of art over any limitations," when he and the Grammy-winning rock band System of a Down supported the restoration of the film at UCLA.
"This film is a gift, a treasure for the soul. The art of cinema here reveals its very best qualities," said Tarkovsky's sister and brother in law Aleksander Gordon (co-director of Tarkovsky's film The Killers) after the Spanish premiere of Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992). Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese also praised the film in writing.
Holds the record of winning the first and the only Russian Academy Award for a film made in Armenia; the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts awards this top professional film honor in the region of the former Soviet countries annually. Tonino Guerra, the screenwriter of Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni masterpieces, attended the Russian premiere of Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) and later praised the film in writing.
Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) includes the original camera negative of Sergei Paradjanov's last unfinished film, The Confession (1990), and turned out to be the last film made by Mikhail Vartanov too.
The final installment in Mikhail Vartanov's documentary trilogy, which also includes Paradjanov: The Color of Armenian Land (1969) and Minas: Rekviem (1989)