Georgian Cinema: Highlights from the BAMPFA Collection

October 29–November 27, 2022

Among the treasured special collections within our film archive are the rare and distinctive holdings of Georgian cinema produced during the Soviet era and since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This series features works by leading Georgian auteurs.

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  • Iliko, Ilarion, Grandmother, and Me

  • Pirosmani

  • Pastorale

  • Arabesque on a Pirosmani Theme

  • Will There Be a Theatre Up There?!

  • Susa

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Susa

    • Sunday, November 27 3 PM
    Rusudan Pirveli
    Georgia, 2010

    BAMPFA Collection

    A quiet young boy weaves his way through the underbelly of contemporary Georgia in this evocative update of the neorealist tradition, which “beautifully captures the way a crumbling locale permeates the characters’ lives” (Variety). 

  • Pirosmani

    • Saturday, November 26 4:30 PM
    Giorgi Shengelaia
    USSR, 1969

    BAMPFA Collection
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    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). With Sergei Paradjanov’s Arabesque on a Pirosmani Theme. 

  • The Way Home

    • Saturday, November 19 5 PM
    Aleksandr Rekhviashvili
    USSR, 1981/87

    BAMPFA Collection

    Inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini and set in a nineteenth-century southern Georgia still dominated by the Ottoman Empire, The Way Home reimagines the historical figure of Anthim the Iberian (1650–1716)—a revered scholar, theologian, calligrapher, and philosopher—as a quiet young man who tries to return home after escaping his captors. An allusive road movie featuring striking landscape cinematography.

  • Molba, a.k.a. Vedreba

    • Sunday, November 13 5 PM
    Tengiz Abuladze
    USSR, 1967

    BAMPFA Collection

    Poetry and song combine in this “magisterially shot” black-and-white work, based on two epic poems by Georgian writer Vaza Psavela (National Film Theatre of London). 

  • Will There Be a Theatre Up There?!

    • Saturday, November 12 5 PM
    Nana Janelidze
    Georgia, 2011

    BAMPFA Collection

    Part historical essay, part re-created biography, Will There Be a Theatre Up There?! uses the tragic circumstances of the twentieth century as a backdrop for the chronicle of a Georgian family. With Salomé Alexi’s Felicità, a deadpan, hilarious short on the work of women. 

  • Iliko, Ilarion, Grandmother, and Me

    • Saturday, November 5 5 PM
    Tengiz Abuladze
    USSR, 1963

    BAMPFA Collection

    Abuladze’s humanist depiction of a small community and his central character’s coming of age—moving through the seasons, through war and then peace—is reminiscent of Satyajit Ray and Federico Fellini’s cinema.

  • Pastorale

    • Saturday, October 29 4:30 PM
    Otar Iosseliani
    USSR, 1975

    BAMPFA Collection

    In this exquisite film by Georgian director 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).