Peter Bagrov, senior curator at Gosfilmofond Russia, is a film historian who specializes in the pre-Revolutionary period and Soviet cinema made between 1920 and 1960

(Postoronites'/Zdes' padaiut kamni, a.k.a. Forward!, Get Out of the Way!). A painter, political cartoonist, sculptor, and theater director who turned to film in his thirties, Mikheil Chiaureli made twenty-five films between 1928 and 1974. Some of his work was associated with the creation of Stalinist mythology; he received the Stalin Prize six times. Set in Tbilisi, Khabarda is a satire that plays on the tension between petit bourgeois values and the incoming sweep of Communist ideology. The film was immediately criticized for elements that were insensitive to Georgian culture. However, Chiaureli's contributions to both radical film style and the expressive pictorial quality of socialist cinema, with films like Saba and Khabarda, remain impressive.