By Rusudan Gvazava, Georgian Times , May 26Georgia has been making films for one hundred years. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgian cinema was known across Soviet blocs as being vibrant and creative. The Italian director Federico Fellini once described it as "a strange phenomenon, special, philosophically light, sophisticated, and at the same time, childishly pure.” But the economic breakdown which followed Georgian independence has made it very difficult to make films, although recently, experts say that quality Georgian filmmaking is beginning to return.
Georgian film production began at nearly the same time as European cinema. The first film festival took place in Tbilisi in 1896. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Georgian cinema, a number of exhibitions, festive events and showings of Georgian silent films have been planned. “A festive opening for Georgian cinema’s jubilee celebration will be held at Rustaveli Theater,” Nino Anjaparidze, a public relations department representative for the Georgian National Film Center, said, inviting the public to attend.
According to her, the Georgian filmmaking has begun to revive. “It turned out that the anniversary coincided with the 60 year anniversary of a well-known Georgian film Keto and Kote by Vakhtang Tabliashvili and Shalva Gedevanishvili,” Anjaparidze says.“
The film festival, will also consist of showing this film and we have newly reconstructed the film and a documentary about the period when this film was made is in the works by independent company ‘Kiono Project’ headed by Archil Geloavni,” stated Anjaparidze.
Experts widely consider 1908 the year cinema was born in Georgia, when film directors Dighmelov and Amashukeli made their first experimental shots. In 1912, Amashukeli shot the first full-length documentary movie, Akakis Mogzauroba [Akaki's Journey], about poet Akaki Tsereteli. The film was unparalleled by any other movie in world at that time as to its theme, length and artistic level. The first full-range feature film in Georgia, Kristine was shot from 1916 to 1918. The film was directed by Aleksandre Tsutsunava. In 1924 “Three Lives” by Perestiani was a great success - the film was the first attempt to provide psychological insight into the heroes.
In the mid 1920s, theatre, literature and art professionals came to the cinema. When Samanishvili's Stepmother (Marjanishvili) and Khanuma (Tsutsunava) appeared on the screen, they marked the beginning of a new genre of comedy film. Films of this period were very popular due to the first Georgian film star, Nato Vachnadze {from such films as The Story of Tariel Mklavadze, Who can Be Blamed, and others), the country's first silver screen diva.
Next came a period of new genres and style in the Georgian Cinema. One of the best representatives of the generation was Nikolai Shengelaia. Though he lived in Stalin’s epoch, watching his films we feel the directors active strive for innovation and artistic expressions in his films. Now, N. Shengelaias and N. Vachnadzes sons Eldar and Giorgi Shengelaia are also famous directors of the Georgian cinema.
The film My Grandmother by Kote Mikaberidze (1929) was also a crucial turning point for Georgian film. In this movie, for the first time in Georgian and Soviet cinematography, the principles of expressionism appeared.
The film was forbidden to appear on the screen, but many years later the film was restored and shown in La Rochelle. Soviet ideology was so pressing in the 1930s that little innovation took place. Only some films of the period were noteworthy: Siko Dolidze's Dariko (1936), David Rondeli's Lost Paradise (1937), and a few others.
Keti Dolidze a famous Georgian film director and a daughter of a well-known Georgian film director, says that she must congratulate the anniversary to the Georgian cinema in the past, and that nowadays, “Georgian cinema is in very bad condition because our government puts little money into cinema..
It is very difficult to revive after 15 years of falling and how can we overtake European cinema and even Russian cinema, as they have already produced 600 hundred movies this year because their government gives them enough money to produce films…
Businessmen will never put money into this field because if they put money in, they will have to pay more taxes on it,” Keti Dolidze claimed.
The 1970s is considered the Golden Age for Georgian cinema due to the works of directors such as Eldar and Giorgi Shengelaya, Otar Iosseliani, Rezo Chkheidze, Sergei Parajanov, and Tenguiz Abuladze, although this same period of time is also thought to be the most complicated period for Georgian Cinema. Film directors often had to use symbols, metaphors, and allegories to skirt Soviet regulations. Regardless of the influence of the soviet Union ideology, film directors from the 60-70s preserved the essentials that make up the Georgian cinema.
Chkheidze and his classmate Tenghiz Abuladze, a seminal figure in Georgian cinema, collaborated on several projects, and they directed their first feature film Magdanas Lurja [Magdana’s Donkey] in 1955, which won the 1956 Golden Palm award for best fiction film. The films of this period followed the principles of neo-realism aesthetics. Abuladze's artistic cinematography and metaphorical thinking is further developed in his films A Tree of Wishes (1976) and Repentance (1984). Repentance turned out to be the most important piece of art of the 1980s in Georgia, also known as the ‘perestroika’ period.
Mimino is a 1977 film by Georgian director Giorgi Daneliya made on Mosfilm, starring Vakhtang Kikabidze and Frunzik Mkrtchyan. It is a Soviet Era comedy, which won the 1977 Golden Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. The writer/director Georgi Danelia and his co/writer, Victoria Tokareva created a funny, insightful, and at times, sad story with real, earthy, decent, and very human heroes.
Short films have an original and peculiar place among Georgian films and the first master of this genre was Michael Kobakhidze, who built silent miniatures according to the principles of sound film. His film Wedding (1965) won the Grand Prize at Obesrhausen. And Umbrella (1967) won Grand Prize in Krakow. His first film was Alaverdoba (1963).
Several film makers moved abroad in the 1980s 90s, including Otar Iosseliani (April, Cast Iron, There was a Singing Bird (1971), The Pastoral (1976)) Dito Tsintsadze, and Temur Babluani. Other directors, who stayed in Georgia, like Dato Koteteshvili and Gogita Chkonia has just begun to make their mark when the entire film industry – and their careers- came to an abrupt halt. In 1972, a faculty of Cinema was opened in the Tbilisi Rustaveli Theatre Institute, and later the institute was named The Tbilisi Theatre and Cinema Institute.
In the opinion of Gaga Chkheidze, deputy director of the Georgian National Film Center, one of the main problems facing Georgian cinema today is the professionalism of film directors and producers. “I think that we need a producer’s company and more schools in Georgia because it seems that our commission considers new films as less professionalism and producers are the main people shooting films; he finds a film director and conducts all the process himself. Also, film directors during the last decades faced not only money problem but also creative issues,” commented Chkheidze on the present situation of Georgian film has been lifting since 2005. “Now, we receive finances from the government every year, though it is still not much money for cinema. It equals one million and seven hundred lari and this one million more, compared to last year,” Chkeidze said.“
During Shevardnadze period, there were many promises unfulfilled. So that I think that the crisis is over, we also have a commission which holds a competition every year for film project and the winners receive finances shooting their films. Cinema receives too little attention nowadays, and I think it must be first on the list of finances from the government. For example Russia gives films nearly 0.2 percent of its budget,” Chkeidze said about the difficulties in producing films in Georgia in recent years.
But, he also praised the fact that even in the tumultuous period after independence, some films were made: “You might be surprised, but in that period, 60 films were shot even though many of them are not known for people.”Although Georgian cinema has received little world recognition recently, two films in particular are now thought to mark a revival of Georgian cinema Tbilisi-Tbilisi (2005) by the late Levan Zakareshvili and The Roof by Rezo Esadze, both of which took several years to complete. Before his death, Zakareishvili said that the reason his film took so long to complete was because “as soon as the government found out what the script was about, the sequesters began. When there was money, they used to say, ‘It is not for you, you have to wait.’ Six years passed in torture. Due to my tense relationship with the Shevardnadze government, the film took six years to shoot.”
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