Pirosmani deals with the life of the greatGeorgian primitive artist Niko Pirosmanishvili, who worked prior to 1920.Shengelaya avoids the usual clichés of films about artists' lives,successfully experimenting with color control techniques based on the painter'sstyle. Avtandi Varazi plays the gentle, uncompromising artist who sold hispaintings to bars and restaurants for food and drink, and worked mostly insolitude. After its American premiere at PFA in 1974, this delicate and poeticfilm won the Grand Prize at the Chicago Film Festival and went on to play in NewYork to critical acclaim. In 1978 a New Yorker review called it "a splendidand innovative work of poetic biography°.Shengelaya understands an unusual amountof the creative process."