Of all the figureheads of post-war Georgian cinema — Tengiz Abuladze, Otar Iosseliani, his own brother Giorgi — Eldar Shengelaia’s is the name most readily and explicitly associated with the struggle for national independence. Abuladze et al are important points of reference for Georgian cultural identity; Shengelaia on the other hand was an active political campaigner. Indeed, after the success of his 1983 satire Blue Mountains, he withdrew from filmmaking for a decade to dedicate himself to a political career as remarkable as his artistic one: he was twice elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR; sat on the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR; was a member of the so-called “Sobchak commission” that investigated a Soviet military crackdown on pro-independence protesters in Tbilisi; helped to found the People’s Front of Georgia; and was a signatory to the nation’s eventual Act of Independence in 1991.Read More »
