EVENT: Georgian Day in Hilton the Hague in Netherland on Tuesday, May 28, 2013

On the occasion of the Georgian Independence Day the Ambassador of Georgia H.E. Shota Gvineria has the honor to request your company at the "Georgian Day" on Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 18:00 in Hilton the Hague

Official launch of the Netherlands-Georgia Business Council will be held during the event
Reception will be accompanied by Georgian Music, Wine and Cuisine
(please see the full program of the "Georgian Day" below)
R.S.V.P. by email: thehague.emb@mfa.gov.ge or Tel: 070 3029080

Maka Batiashvili are inviting on her exhibition at the "Georgian Day" in Netherland in the Hague on Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 18:00
In Hilton the Hague
Address: Zeestraat 35, 2518 AA The Hague, Netherlands
Maka batashvili will be also there ...

Program of the Georgian Day in Hilton the Hague
17:30 - Welcome drinks
18:00 - Music performance by the famous Georgian Folk Group “Chveneburebi”
18:30 - Official Launch of the Netherlands-Georgia Business Council:
* opening remarks by the Ambassador of Georgia H.E. Shota Gvineria
* presentation by the National Tourism Administration
* presentation by the Georgian National Investment Agency
* presentation by the NGBC
19:00 - Music performance by the Georgian Folk Group “Chveneburebi”
19:15 - Networking reception with Georgian music, food and drinks

Official Launch of the Netherlands-Georgia Business Council (www.NGBC.nl)
On April 5th, 2012, a successful kick-off event was held in the Chamber of Commerce The Hague. More than 80 Dutch companies have shown interest in the NGBC activities and expressed their readiness for cooperation. The fact that the Netherlands was number one investor to Georgia during two consecutive years, in 2011 and 2012, is an additional source of inspiration for NGBC. During the past three years investments from the Netherlands in Georgia have grown by 60%, and Dutch companies are becoming more and more active in Georgia, as they become more aware of the huge potential available in the country. This promising dynamics was one of the motivating factors for the NGBC to start operation since the beginning of 2013. Today we are ready to offer you our services with the aim to boost your interests towards Georgia through providing tailor made information about the unexplored opportunities.

Wine tasting (www.nwa.ge)
The National Wine Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia is an organization responsible for assisting the development of Wine Sector of Georgia through establishment of quality control mechanism and organizing promotional activities to increase international awareness of the unique character of Georgian Wines. In cooperation with the leading Georgian wine producers, National Wine Agency will offer you the possibility to taste a wide range of distinctive wine varieties. Don’t miss the opportunity to experience exceptional flavors of the indigenous grape breads brought to you directly from the birthplace of wine. 

Exhibition (maka.batiashvili.net)
Maka Batiashvili, born in 1975, finished her studies at the State Academy of Arts in Tbilisi in 1997. Since then she has been presenting her artworks in various group and solo exhibitions across the globe. Maka is a great illustration of the new generation of modern Georgian artists who specializes in oil paintings, graphic, installation and video works.

Music (www.chveneburebi.com; www.youtube.com/CHVENEBUREBI)
Georgian Folk Group “Chveneburebi” consists of 8 members. Each of them is originally from a different part of Georgia. This fact helps them to keep authentic tradition and manner of singing. Besides singing, each member of the group can dance and play the Georgian folk instruments. Each of them can sing all polyphonic voices and is distinguished by the special voice tembre. Therefore, “Chveneburebi” has maintained the real, authentic character and manner of performance. The repertoire contains Pure Georgian folk music and ethno-musical compositions composed by the group (additionally supported by the standard drum, keyboard and bass guitar).

Investments & Tourism EXPO (www.investingeorgia.org; www.gnta.org)
Throughout the “Georgian day” an exposition about the opportunities for your business and pleasure in Georgia will be brought to your attention by the National Investment Agency and National Tourism Administration of Georgia.

FESTIVAL: The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear. By Tinatin Gurchiani (idfa.nl)

(idfa.nl) A filmmaker returns to her home country of Georgia to make a documentary about the lives of young people there. Wanting to get in touch with youngsters from every social background and part of the country, she announces through a variety of channels that she's going to organize a casting call. The leitmotif of this film is the search for the ideal protagonist, with interviews with the candidates and scenes from their day-to-day lives. The boys and girls responding to the call are radically different from one another, as are their personal reasons for auditioning. Some want be famous movie stars, while others simply want to tell their story. And one girl wants to call her mother to account, after having been abandoned by her years before. Thirteen-year-old Ramin has to work hard in the small mountain village where he lives, helping care for his handicapped family members. And Gotcha defends his brother, who's serving 25 years in jail. These extraordinary and touching stories about war, love, dreams and poverty paint a kaleidoscopic picture of a modern society that still echoes with its Soviet past.

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Georgia 2011. A film director announces a casting for 15-23 year old youth. Here are many people who answer the call: some are ready to share their sentimental stories or seek the strength to carry out their major resolutions... A film about how beautiful life can be and how difficult when you dream of being a hero. The protagonists of this film live and dream this heroism, whether they run from reality or face it head-on. They are old and they are very young, just beginning their lives. But they are all united in the poetry of searching.

ARTICLE: Georgia: The rose revolution fades. By Hans van Baalen (europeanvoice.com)

(europeanvoice.com) As Georgia heads towards parliamentary elections, its democracy looks increasingly endangered.

Revolutions have a nasty habit of turning full circle. The so-called Arab Spring, which promised so much a year ago, has left disappointment and frustration in its wake. Ukraine's Orange Revolution of 2004 denied Viktor Yanukovych the presidency, yet today he is an all-powerful president and his chief opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, the symbol of the transformation of 2004-05, sits in prison.

Georgia, too, promised much after the Rose Revolution in 2003, when democracy breezed through this ancient country and replaced the ageing and authoritarian president Eduard Shevardnadze with a youthful and outward-looking clique headed by Mikheil Saakashvili.

But the Rose Revolution has also lost its bloom. A decade of rule by Saakashvili has left the country more divided, and its democracy more endangered, than at any time in its post-Soviet history. Saakashvili's own instincts appear to be growing ever more authoritarian.

Georgia goes to the polls in October to vote for a new parliament – shortly after my own country, the Netherlands. But there could scarcely be a greater difference between the two countries in terms of what is at stake. The Netherlands is used to consensual coalitions, sometimes encompassing left and right. Georgia is deeply polarised, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that these elections could either consolidate or smash apart the country's already fragile democracy.

Another important difference between these two forthcoming elections is the extent to which, in Georgia, the focus on personality is unrelenting. There is virtually no discussion about political programmes, or positioning on either the left or the right of the political programme. What political discourse there is relates largely to Georgia's external relations, and is coloured by Saakashvili's loathing for Russia.

The focus on personality is undoubtedly because Saakashvili is facing the first serious challenge to his dominance since he took office. Bidzina Ivanishvili, an entrepreneur, and his Georgian Dream coalition are mounting a credible opposition to Saakashvili's stranglehold on power. And because Saakashvili knows he has relatively few achievements on which to call for future support, he has taken to all manner of personal attacks against Ivanishvili. You might call it ‘Ivanishvilification'.

Whenever Ivanishvili is profiled, even in Western newspapers, he is described as a billionaire, as though success is a dirty word, or as if wealth is incompatible with political leadership. Saakashvili regularly denounces the consultants engaged by Ivanishvili to accentuate Georgian Dream's alternative vision of the country's future, conveniently glossing over the fact that Saakashvili's government has itself spent large sums of Georgian taxpayers' money trying to promote him and his government in the US and EU, not least in the public-relations war with the Kremlin during and after the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict.

Personal attacks are par for the course in politics. But the attacks directed at Georgian Dream go well beyond what is acceptable in a democracy. There appears to be a systematic attempt to undermine Georgian Dream's electoral prospects – through legal persecution, through manipulation of the press and through intimidation.

As president of Liberal International, the global family of liberal-democratic parties, I should declare an interest here: two of the parties in the Georgian Dream coalition are allied to Liberal International. But like all democrats, I believe democracy itself is more important than any party or movement. What Georgians need is a stable, fair and competitive political environment in which they can make free choices about their future.

This, however, seems unlikely. Leading human-rights NGOs are increasingly vocal in their criticism of the incendiary nature of politics in Georgia. The UN special rapporteur on the right of freedom of peaceful assembly and association has just tabled a report highlighting serious problems in Georgia. Even the EU, not known for its straight talking, has warned Saakashvili that it expects a free, fair and transparent election, and has emphasised that this is primarily his responsibility.

We cannot expect a country like Georgia, for so long under Moscow's domination, to become an established democracy overnight. But the EU should be clear with Tbilisi that its financial and political support for Georgia depends on democracy being strengthened, not undermined. Politics in Georgia, and indeed the debate that we in Europe are having about politics and political personalities in Georgia, needs to move beyond personal animosities and mud-slinging towards a more mature discourse, focused on the future. Georgia is facing many challenges internally and externally, but Georgians can ill afford for democracy itself to be under challenge.

Hans van Baalen is a Liberal Dutch member of the European Parliament.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: DOCSTORIES – BLACK SEA 2012 (docstories-blacksea.com)

Application Deadline: 21.05.2012


Docstories Black Sea – Storytelling in Documentary Film is a workshop aimed at developing creative documentary projects and innovative non-fiction formats in the greater Black Sea region. 


The workshop is organized by a group of three partners: IDFA (The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), Art-Doc (Romania) and the Noosfera Foundation (Georgia). Docstories Black Sea is funded by the EU (Media Mundus Programme) & by the Open Society Foundation (Georgia).
Documentary filmmakers, producers, editors, authors, commissioning editors and TV-media professionals from Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Moldova may apply.


Experienced tutors, directors and editors working on the European documentary market will help the participants to analyze their projects and to develop them according on high international standards.


The training initiative Docstories Black Sea contains three sessions:


1. The first session takes place in Tbilisi (Georgia) from 02.07.2012 – 06.07.2012 and deals with storytelling structures & dramaturgy
2. The second session takes place in Sibiu (Romania) from 16.10.2012 - 20.10.2012 in cooperation with the Astra Film Festival and besides further development of the projects it deals with innovative documentary formats for TV & internet
3. The third session takes place in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) from 15.11.2012 – 19.11.2012 in partnership with IDFA and IDFA Academy and deals with funding, co-production and distribution possibilities. 


The participants can present their projects in organized one-on-one meetings at the biggest and most important documentary festival in Europe. Apart from this they will attend all industry events & master classes organized by IDFA Academy.

15 participants (registered for all 3 sessions) and 6 additional participants who can apply separately for the session of their interest: either in Georgia (Tbilisi) or in Sibiu (Romania) will be selected. The documentary projects of the applicants may be at the development, production or rough-cut stage.


It is required that the selected participants who have applied for the entire workshop, attend all three sessions. The working language is English, but there will be also a Russian language group during the session in Tbilisi. For the guidelines and any additional questions please visit our website or contact us at: artdoc.romania@gmail.com


To apply, please use the online application form on 
www.docstories-blacksea.com

KULTUR: Iberia-Festival 2012 in den Niederlanden

AMSTERDAM - zum dritten Mal in Folge wird das Festival Iberia organisiert. Die ArtEcho Stiftung begann im Jahr 2010 mit der Veranstaltung, mit dem Ziel, der unbekannten und reichen georgischen Kultur in den Niederlanden mehr Bewusstsein zu verschaffen.

Dieses Jahr wird das Festival unter dem Namen "Georgien: Lokale Zeit." stattfinden. Mit Gesang, Malerei, Fotografie und sogar einem Workshop wird vom 23. bis 25. März das Festival stattfinden.

Neben dem inzwischen schon traditionellen Standort Leiden wird eine Veranstaltung einen Tag und in Keukenhof sein. Es werden auch Veranstaltungen auf der Insel Texel organisiert.

Die Insel unterhält eine besondere Beziehung zu Georgien. Der Aufstand der Georgier, war ein Aufstand der georgischen Kriegsgefangenen gegen die Deutschen. Der Aufstand begann am 6. April 1945 und endete am 20.

Es gibt Konzerte des berühmten nationalen Rustavi-Ensemble, Ausstellungen georgischer Malerei und Fotografie und Workshops in Gesang und Trommeln.

Auf Initiative der First Lady von Georgien Sandra Roelofs, selbst Niederländerin, wurde das  besonderes Projekt in die Niederlande ins Leben gerufen. Die Arbeit des kürzlich verstorbenen georgischen Künstlers Paata Kuparadze unter dem Titel "Colour Party" ist ein spezieller Teil des Festivals.

Für weitere Informationen: www.festivaliberia.nl

Source: www.telegraaf.nl

CULTURE: Rustavi's tour in Netherlands in the frame of The First Georgian Cultural Festival IBERIA (festivaliberia.nl)

The program and venues for Rustavi's tour in Netherlands in the frame of The First Georgian Cultural Festival IBERIA are announced. A broad program consisting of concerts of polyphonic chant and traditional dances, a fine-arts exhibition, a retrospective of Georgian cinema and wine-tasting will fill Leiden for the week of 12-20 June 2010 with Georgian colours. The event will take place in Leiden with the cooperation of amongst others the Leiden Theatre (Leidse schouwburg), Leiden galleries and Leiden Film Festival.

For any further information please contact Stichting ArtEcho at info@artecho.nl, see the webs www.artecho.nl and www.festivaliberia.nl, or call via organizers phone +31 (0)6 44 840 340.

ART: The Artist David Gabriël Djindjikhachvili (davidgabriel.nl)

David Gabriël Djindjikhachvili is born in Georgia in the year 1975. He grows up and completes grammar school in Tbilisi during the intense period of political and socia changes. Being raised in an artistic family he develops from the youngest age the sculpting, drawing, and painting skills.

In 1995 he starts the studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where his artistic work acquires a new direction. During this time he develops a strong interest in filmmaking, graduating in 1999 from the Audiovisual Department. In the postgraduate Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam he deepens the conceptual and practical understanding of the moving image still further graduating in 2001.

In his artistic practice up to date he is not daunted by the scale or nature of the projects, and is thus always finding ways of unique artistic expression by taking charge of the projects and imposing his own ideas and standards on the film and photography. He lives and works in Amsterdam.

more here >>>

Artist brings together reality and aesthetics (Georgia Today) by Anna Chichinadze

EXHIBITION: New Project - The New Map of Tbilisi & UrbanCPRme

Dear Friends and colleagues,

Please find attached on the wall an invitation and a preview of our new projects: The New Map of Tbilisi & UrbanCPRme.

The projects are a result of our love for, curiosity and interest in Georgia, which started with a trip to Tbilisi right at the time of its massive privatization (end of 2005).

Warm regards,
Malkit on behalf of FAST and One Architecture...

PS the project will be exhibited from 25 Sep until 10 Jan, at the Netherlands Architecture Institute, as part of the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam.