Georgia

  • Tamaz Meliava & Eldar Shengelaia – Tetri karavani AKA The White Caravan (1963)

    1961-1970DramaEldar ShengelaiaGeorgiaRomanceTamaz Meliava

    It was always likely that Eldar Shengelaia would end up in film. His father Nikoloz was one of the early pioneers of Georgian cinema, his mother Nato an acclaimed actor. Younger brother Giorgi was an accomplished director in his own right, noted for his 1969 biopic on the Georgian primitivist artist Pirosmani. Both Shengelaia brothers won admission to the VGIK film school in Moscow, the USSR’s most prestigious, graduating a few years apart, and Eldar’s first directorial efforts were produced while working at Mosfilm in the late fifties – The Legend of the Frozen Heart (1957) and A Snowy Tale (1959).Read More »

  • Eldar Shengelaia – Sherekilebi AKA The Eccentrics (1974)

    1971-1980ArthouseComedyEldar ShengelaiaGeorgia

    There’s a distinct madness to Georgian auteur Eldar Shengalaia’s method when it comes to blending political satire and humour. He deploys madcap comedy with ease to both disguise and expose the nuanced complexities of individual and societal living during the Soviet era. The 1973 surrealistic satire Eccentrics is Shengalaia’s second feature-length comedy, in which he rekindles the thematic pneuma of his earlier diploma films such as Legend of the Frozen Heart and Fairy Tale in Snow (1958-60) by juxtaposing fantasy and reality in a fable-like love story, described variously by critics as “poetic”, “grand and eternal”, “a parable of grotesque realism” and “vaudeville-like.”Read More »

  • Juja Dobrachkous – Bebia, à mon seul désir AKA Bebia, My Only Desire (2021)

    Drama2021-2030ArthouseGeorgiaJuja Dobrachkous

    A young model returns to the Georgian countryside, where a confrontation with her past offers hope for the future.Read More »

  • Levan Koguashvili – Quchis Dgeebi AKA Street Days (2010)

    2001-2010CrimeGeorgiaLevan Koguashvili

    A middle-aged, unemployed heroin-addict, Checkie, loiters on the Tbilisi street outside his son’s school, where he himself was once a promising student. His wife, meanwhile, struggles to pay the tuition and understand her husband’s lack of interest in the family’s survival—even as the bank repossesses their furniture. But when a group of policemen blackmails Checkie into entrapping the son of his wealthy friend, husband and wife are unified by the uncertainty of their deepening moral dilemma, and a series of worsening foul-ups, in Levan Koguashvili’s lightly humorous yet realistic drama about the fate of a generation left behind in Georgia’s post-Soviet era.Read More »

  • Levan Koguashvili – Brma paemnebi AKA Blind Dates (2013)

    2011-2020ComedyGeorgiaLevan Koguashvili

    Quote:
    Fortysomething Sandro still lives at home with his parents. He and his best friend seem to have no luck at finding true love during their misadventures of meeting and date various women.Read More »

  • Levan Koguashvili – Brighton 4th (2021)

    2021-2030DramaGeorgiaLevan Koguashvili

    Quote:
    In this portrait of parental sacrifice and the love of a father for his son, former wrestler Kakhi (played by real-life Olympic champion Levan Tediashvili) embarks on a journey from his home in the Republic of Georgia to visit his son Soso (Giorgi Tabidze) in the Russian-speaking neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. There he finds him living in a shabby boarding house populated by a colorful group of fellow Georgian immigrants. Soso is not studying medicine, as Kakhi believed, but is working for a moving company and has accrued a $14,000 gambling debt to a local Russian mob boss. Kakhi sets his mind to helping his hapless son out of his debt, leading to situations as often comic as they are dire. Lensed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (The Trial of the Chicago 7, Nebraska), Levan Koguashvili’s Brighton 4th won three major awards at the Tribeca Film Festival – Best International Film, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay – and is Georgia’s official submission to the 94th Academy Awards.Read More »

  • Dito Tsintsadze – Shindisi AKA A Batalha de Shindisi (2019)

    2011-2020Dito TsintsadzeDramaGeorgiaWar

    Georgia’s Oscar submission tells a harrowing true story taken from the Russo-Georgian War of 2008.

    Shindisi is the name of the sleepy village where director Dito Tsintsadze’s passionately told tale of soldiers and civilians is set, a story made all the more poignant because it is taken from a real-life incident from the brief Russo-Georgian War of August 2008. For those turned off by war films, this is not your typical macho fantasy, though there is a long and well-filmed sequence of shooting, shelling, torching and grenades. But the pic’s real focus is on the compassion and bravery of the villagers who risked their lives to rescue wounded Georgian troops.Read More »

  • Salomé Jashi – Taming the Garden (2021)

    2021-2030ArthouseDocumentaryGeorgiaSalomé Jashi

    Documentary follows trees that are transported, at great expense and inconvenience, from the coast of the Republic of Georgia to the private garden of that country’s former prime minister.Read More »

  • Nana Janelidze – Iavnana AKA Lullaby (1994)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaGeorgiaNana Janelidze

    Quote:
    The life of a peaceful family changes when two drifters come in. The two men are met with hospitality. They repay it by kidnapping the family’s child.Read More »

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