Discovering Georgian Cinema
September 26, 2014–April 19, 2015
Inspired by BAM/PFA's significant holdings of Soviet Georgian films, Discovering Georgian Cinema explores the rich cinematic tradition that has emerged from this distinctive cultural milieu during the past century. Including over fifty programs presented over seven months, this series offers multiple opportunities to encounter an impressive range of stylistic approaches and thematic concerns, as well as lyrical depictions of Georgia's spectacular landscape.
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Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Blue Mountains
Eldar Shengelaya
1984Friday, September 26 7:30 PMEldar Shengelaia (USSR, 1984). Digital Restoration! Eldar Shengelaia in person. Part Jacques Tati, part Ermanno Olmi, this inspired satire by one of Georgia's leading directors is a charming and disarming critique of bureaucracy. (97 mins)View DetailsTwenty-Six Commissars
Saturday, September 27 6:30 PMNikoloz Shengelaia (USSR, 1932). Imported Print! Eldar Shengelaia in Person. Judith Rosenberg on piano. Set against a backdrop of oil derricks and sand dunes, this impressive silent-era feature about the geopolitical struggle for the control of oil fields is still relevant today. Preceded by Work at Oil Derricks and Oil Extraction, a fascinating 1907 look at Baku. (77 mins)View DetailsThe White Caravan
Saturday, September 27 8:30 PMEldar Shengelaia, Tamaz Meliava (USSR, 1963). Imported Print! Eldar Shengelaia in person. Shephards battle the elements and manmade temptations in this strikingly shot Georgian work, an entry into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. (97 mins)View DetailsRepentance
Sunday, September 28 4 PMTengiz Abuladze (USSR, 1984/1987). Imported 35mm Print! Nana Janelidze in person. One of the first Russian films to deal with the terrors of the Stalin era, Repentance combines symbolism and surrealism for this look at a paranoid dictator. “Mordantly funny . . . as artful as it is sobering” (NY Times). (153 mins)View DetailsAn Unusual Exhibition
Monday, September 29 7 PMEldar Shengelaia (USSR, 1968). Eldar Shengelaia in person. A sculptor aspires to a life of creativity, but finds reality-in the form of conformity, bureaucracy, and compromise-far more difficult. A tragicomedy of daily proportions, and one of Georgian cinema's best-received works. (96 mins)View DetailsWill There Be a Theater Up There?!
Tuesday, September 30 7 PMNana Janelidze (Georgia, 2011). Bay Area Premiere! Nana Janelidze in person. Part historical essay, part re-created biography this film uses the tragic circumstances of the twentieth century as a backdrop for the chronicle of a Georgian family. Preceded by Janelidze's The Family. (80 mins)View DetailsLittle Red Devils
Saturday, October 4 6:30 PMIvan Perestiani (USSR, 1923). Judith Rosenberg on piano. Three daredevils volunteer as scouts in the Red Cavalry-and encounter famed anarchist Nestor Makhno-in Perestiani's entertaining silent film, which borrows from the American adventure styles of Douglas Fairbanks. (100 mins)View DetailsThree Lives: Parts 1 & 2
Saturday, October 11 5:30 PMIvan Perestiani (USSR, 1924). Judith Rosenberg on piano. Distinctive location shooting, inspired compositions, and beautiful use of natural light lend an atmospheric, almost documentary quality to this silent work set in late nineteenth-century Georgia. (150 mins)View DetailsThe Case of Tariel Mklavadze
Sunday, October 12 4 PMIvan Perestiani (USSR, 1925). Imported Print! Lecture by Peter Rollberg. Judith Rosenberg on piano. This courtroom drama about social injustice combines an innovative use of flashbacks with elements of subtle satire and melodrama. A “masterwork of emotionally compelling narrative filmmaking”(Sergei Kapterev). (98 mins)View DetailsMagdana's Donkey
Friday, October 17 7 PMTengiz Abuladze, Revaz Chkeidze (USSR, 1955). Eisensteinian flair merges with an inventive Georgian musical score in this tale of a widow, her three children, and a donkey. Winner, Best Fiction Film, Cannes 1956. (67 mins)View DetailsMolba
Friday, October 17 8:30 PMTengiz Abuladze (USSR, 1967). Poetry and song combine in this black-and-white work, based on two epic poems by Georgian writer Vaza Psavela. “Magisterially shot” (National Film Theatre of London). (80 mins)View DetailsGeorgian Kulturfilms
Sunday, October 19 4 PMIntroduced by Nino Dzandzava. Judith Rosenberg on piano. This special program showcases recent efforts to digitally restore examples of the kulturfilm boom of the late 1920s and early 1930s, films made by young cinephile directors in Soviet Georgia. A fascinating sampling of silent cinema from Georgia. (104 mins)View DetailsEliso
Saturday, October 25 6:30 PMNikoloz Shengelaia (USSR, 1928). Live Music by Trio Kavkasia. One of Russian and Georgian cinema's greatest silent-film achievements, this historical epic evokes the tragic fate of a nation pacified in 1864 by the Tsarist Russian Empire. Features beautiful portrayals of Caucasus customs and celebrations. Special admission prices apply. (80 mins)View DetailsEliso
Sunday, October 26 4 PMNikoloz Shengelaia (USSR, 1928). Live Music by Trio Kavkasia. One of Russian and Georgian cinema's greatest silent-film achievements, this historical epic evokes the tragic fate of a nation pacified in 1864 by the Tsarist Russian Empire. Features beautiful portrayals of Caucasus customs and celebrations. Special admission prices apply. (80 mins)View DetailsThe Wishing Tree
Saturday, November 1 6 PMTengiz Abuladze (USSR, 1977). Over twenty stories make up this episodic Georgian pastorale, set in the pre-Revolutionary birthplace of the famous painter Pirosmani. “Coordinated with the utmost consideration for what pleases the eye” (Hollywood Reporter). (108 mins)View DetailsPirosmani
Sunday, November 2 4 PMGiorgi Shengelaia (USSR, 1969). This poetic, visually stunning biography of the great Georgian primitive artist Nikoloz (Niko) Pirosmanishvili won the Grand Prize at the Chicago Film Festival. “A splendid and innovative work of poetic biography” (New Yorker). (85 mins)View DetailsBuba
Saturday, November 8 6 PMNoutsa Gogoberidze (USSR, 1930) Imported Print! Judith Rosenberg on piano. Long suppressed and nearly written out of film history, this exceptional documentary was an artistic collaboration between Georgia's first female director and the noted avant-garde painter David Kakabadze. With Felicità (2009), a deadpan, hilarious short on the work of women. (69 mins)View DetailsOur Courtyard
Sunday, November 9 4 PMRezo Chkheidze (USSR, 1956). The picaresque village comedy is updated for Georgia's postwar urban realities in Rezo Chkheidze's lyrical tale of life, love, and collective labor inside a chaotic Tbilisi apartment block. Stars future filmmaker Giorgi Shengelaia. (89 mins)View DetailsStreet Days & Women from Georgia
Monday, November 17 7 PMLevan Koguashvili (Georgia/US, 2009) Bay Area Premiere! Levan Koguashvili in person. This eye-opening, compelling documentary sheds light on the hardships experienced by Georgian women in America. Followed by Street Days, a powerful character study of a drug addict struggling to survive in Tbilisi. (143 mins)View DetailsBlind Dates
Tuesday, November 18 7 PMLevan Koguashvili (Georgia, 2013). Levan Koguashvili in person. A forty-something bachelor seeks true love, even if he is still living at home with his parents, in this whimsical Georgian love story. (95 mins)View DetailsAmerikanka
Thursday, November 20 7 PMLeo Esakya (USSR, 1930). Imported Print! Introduced by Nikolay Mikhailovich Borodachev and Peter Bagrov. Judith Rosenberg on piano. A rediscovered archival treasure from famed Russian studio Gosfilmofond, this Potemkin on Park Row is a stylistically original piece of revolutionary propaganda, which tracks the radical activities of an underground print shop. (76 mins)View DetailsKhabarda
Thursday, November 20 8:45 PMMikheil Chiaureli (USSR, 1931). Imported Print! Introduced by Nikolay Mikhailovich Borodachev and Peter Bagrov. Judith Rosenberg on piano. Set in Tbilisi, Khabarda is a satire that plays on the tension between petit bourgeois values and the incoming sweep of Communist ideology. Another rare, rediscovered find from the archives of Gosfilmofond. (64 mins)View DetailsSalt for Svanetia
Saturday, November 22 6:30 PMMikhail Kalatozov (USSR, 1930). Judith Rosenberg on piano. A snowbound, rock-hewn village in the harsh Caucasus is the setting for his bracing, rhythmically cut early masterpiece from the director of I Am Cuba. Nature, politics, and cinema combine in this salute to “the dynamic sublime.” (66 mins)View DetailsA Nail in the Boot
Saturday, November 22 8 PMMikhail Kalatozov (USSR, 1930/1932). Imported Print! Judith Rosenberg on piano. The saying “For want of a nail, a war was lost” is brought to dynamic, stirring life in this rapid-fire look at the Red Army. Another early masterpiece from the director of I Am Cuba. Followed by Patrick Cazal's documentary on the director, Hurricane Kalatozov (2010). (128 mins)View DetailsThe Cranes Are Flying
Friday, November 28 5:30 PMMikhail Kalatozov (USSR, 1957). Mikhail Kalatozov's stunningly visualized drama of young love and ambition destroyed by war. A key work of both the post-Stalin era and all of world cinema. Winner, Palme d'Or, 1958 Cannes Film Festival. (95 mins)View DetailsI Am Cuba
Saturday, November 29 5:30 PMMikhail Kalatozov (Cuba/USSR, 1964). Made in 1962 as an act of Soviet-Cuban friendship, and written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, this is an extraordinary example of "pure" cinema in the service of politics. "A deliriously one-of-a-kind movie, wildly schizophrenic in its bizarre mix of Slavic solemnity and Latin sensuality" (Telluride Film Festival). (138 mins)View DetailsFlight of the Sparrows
Saturday, December 6 6 PMTeimur Babluani (USSR, 1980) New 35mm Print! A fistfight on a crowded train triggers something far larger in this intriguing Georgian allegory, one of Georgian cinema's standout works of the eighties. (60 mins)View DetailsThe Swimmer
Sunday, December 7 4 PMIrakli Kvirikadze (USSR, 1984). An amusing and artfully crafted tale of three generations of long-distance swimmers, and the several decades of Georgian history their lives represent. Preceded by Kirikadze's The Jar (1971), which transposes Pirandello's story to rural Georgia. (134 mins)View DetailsSaba
Saturday, December 13 6:30 PMMikheil Chiaureli (USSR, 1929). Judith Rosenberg on piano. This silent comic melodrama on the evils of alcohol was filmed on location in Tbilisi, and serves as a rare glimpse of that city circa 1929. (100 mins)View DetailsParadise Lost
Abel Gance
France, 1939Sunday, December 14 4 PMDavit Rondeli (USSR, 1938). Imported Print! This hilarious satire on the follies and parasitic lifestyles of the fallen nobility was termed the best Georgian comedy of the 1930s. A rare chance to see Soviet Georgian silent film comedy. (85 mins)View Details[no title]
Thursday, January 22 7:30PMOtar Iosseliani (USSR, 1958–64). Imported Prints! A rare chance to see the early films by one of the great Georgian filmmakers, Otar Iosseliani. Titles include Akvareli, Song About a Flower, April, and Cast Iron. (93 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, January 24 6:30PMOtar Iosseliani (USSR, 1967). A young boy gets his first job (in a wine factory!), and soon observes that corruption is the best way to get by. Falling Leaves is typical of the best Georgian films in seeming light and low-key at first, until the satire begins to cut very deep. (80 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, January 24 8:15PMOtar Iosseliani (USSR, 1971). Iosseliani's wry comedy, set in Tbilisi, follows a young musician who is perpetually in a hurry and late for every appointment because his life is so full of chance encounters. A genial, uplifting song to all those who choose life and love over lesser things, like work. (80 mins)View Details[no title]
Thursday, January 29 7:30PMOtar Iosseliani (USSR, 1975). In this exquisite film by Georgian director Otar Iosseliani, a string quartet's visit to a small village is treated with the gentle satire usually associated with the Czech New Wave. “Iosseliani is (Georgia's) greatest director” (Tom Luddy). (94 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, January 31 5:00PMLana Gogoberidze (USSR, 1977). Imported Print! Lana Gogoberidze in person. A bold mixture of documentary and social-psychological drama-and the first film to make mention of Stalin's camps-Some Interviews on Personal Matters makes powerful statements about women, work, family, and marriage that earned it international acclaim as the first feminist film of Soviet cinema. (95 mins)View Details[no title]
Sunday, February 1 2:00PMLana Gogoberidze (USSR, 1984). Imported Print! Lana Gogoberidze in person. The history of Georgia in the twentieth century is reimagined through the life and times of woman in Lana Gogoberidz's moving drama, which premiered at Cannes in 1984. (105 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, February 7 8:30PMKote Mikaberidze (USSR, 1929). Gogol meets Chaplin in this riotous, scathingly antibureaucratic satire, one of the eccentric high points of Soviet silent cinema. Stop-motion bits of puppetry and animation, as well as expressionist decor and camera angles, make My Grandmother seem like a blast from the future, not the past. (65 mins)View Details[no title]
Friday, February 13 8:40PMEldar Shengelaia, Tamaz Meliava (USSR, 1963). Imported Print! Back by Popular Demand! Shephards battle the elements and manmade temptations in this strikingly shot Georgian work, an entry into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. (97 mins)View Details[no title]
Sunday, February 15 2:00PMOtar Iosseliani (France, 1994). Otar Iosseliani's fascinating four-hour documentary presents the history of this former Soviet republic through interwoven images of landscapes, artwork, the civil war, and clips from other Georgian films. (240 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, February 21 6:15PMMerab Kokochashvili (USSR, 1968). Imported Print! The modern world comes to one individualistic worker's forsaken section of the Soviet empire in Merab Kokochashvili's neorealist village drama, one of the most singularly pessimistic works of sixties Soviet film. A true rarity. (80 mins)View Details[no title]
Saturday, February 28 5:45PMTengiz Abuladze (USSR, 1984/1987). Imported 35mm Print! Back by Popular Demand! One of the first Russian films to deal with the terrors of the Stalin era, Repentance combines symbolism and surrealism for this look at a paranoid dictator. “Mordantly funny . . . as artful as it is sobering” (NY Times). (153 mins)View DetailsThe Legend of Suram Fortress
Dodo Abashidze, Sergei Parajanov
1985Imported Print!
Friday, March 6 7 PMView Details
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