For this retrospective, we made a selection of feature films by Georgian director Levan Tutberidze, and documentaries representing works by a younger generation of Georgian filmmakers – Tekla Aslanishvili, Andro Dadiani, Saba Dolikashvili, and German cinematographer Dominik Gasser. Although different in genre and from different periods, both the feature films and the documentaries explore societies living in the Caucasus after the col-lapse of the Soviet Union. The historical background plays an important role here. The films deal with populations in crisis that have been traumatized by military conflicts in the Karabakh region, by the wars in Abkhazia and Ossetia, which resulted in thousands of internally displaced persons in the territories of Georgia and the Caucasus, with all the resulting economic instability, corrupt governments, waves of nationalism in the former Soviet republics, massive unemployment, and ideologically polarized communities. Both in the feature films as well as in the documentaries, the Caucasus, with its majestic nature and incredible diversity of peoples, is taken under scrutiny.
The united peaceful Caucasus, as it would have been portrayed by the avant-garde filmmakers of the 1920s with their utopian idea of “unity within diversity,” turned out to be a failed project, as the still ongoing conflict in the Karabakh region sadly proves, to name but a few examples. The Caucasus itself, with its picturesque seaside views and breathtaking mountains, as in Levan Tutberidze’s films Moira and Reise nach Karabakh, is one of the major protagonists in both the feature films and the documentaries. It is all about how geo-political struggles for spheres of influence and power over this small but crucially important region at the crossroads of the so-called East and West have disfigured human destinies.
The Caucasus emerges in the films as a terrain irrevocably fragmented by fatal contradictions between failed attempts to construct futuristic “smart” worlds of prosperity for the privileged few, opposed by vast communities living in utter misery in big cities or in sparsely populated countryside. Both Levan Tutberidze’s feature films and the documentaries analyze the pressures of complex, constantly changing political climates, globalization trends, and persistent alienation triggered by market economies, power-hungry local politicians, warlords, criminals, or ruthless capitalist expansionist policies, each of which brings destruction in its own way.
The documentaries of Tekla Aslanishvili, for example, investigate how under the guise of “smartness” and false promises of prosperity, new construction projects not only destroy whatever remains of the “good old Soviet infrastructures,” such as railways or still intact communication systems, but also serve as sad examples of greenwashing, poisoning local nature, and leaving locals disillusioned with so-called “Western ideals.”
In both Tutberidze’s Moira and Tekla Aslanishvili’s Scenes from Trial and Error, the Black Sea and its majestic coast emerge as visual symbols of connectivity with neighboring countries through centuries-old trade routes that fostered cultural exchange dating back to Greek antiquity.
Nature, on the verge of catastrophic pollution, is represented through strong visual imagery as an obvious obstacle intruding into the ruins left by power-thirsty political regimes and their architectures glorifying the ruling elites.
“If previously, during the totalitarian Soviet rule, films had to be approved by the state committee for film (Goskino) and Soviet film criticism, now it is the film markets and streaming services that decide what has a chance to survive and reach cinema screens and what does not. In the nineties, Georgian film fell into a deep crisis. It took Georgian filmmakers a long time to recover from the role of eccentric poets who used to tell their stories through their signature language of Aesopian fables” (Giorgi Gvakharia, Zwischen Zwang und Freiheit. Poesie und Realismus im Georgischen Film).
Among the films that inevitably deserve the attention of wide audiences are undoubtedly the works by Levan Tutberidze, characterized by a highly idiosyncratic language and vision. He creates worlds where the tragic and comic aspects of post-Soviet Georgian reality collide. His protagonists are incredibly vivid and vulnerable; their stories are visceral. The filmmaker creates in his works a convincing tableau of contemporary Georgian existence full of antagonisms. Without losing a sense of humor, his films question the basic values of war-traumatized post-Soviet societies. Although ruthless in exposing evils and injustices, the author is never sarcastic about his protagonists, but attempts to create a consistent chain of events and causalities that explain the choices his heroes make and the decisions they opt for.
Far from falling into moralizing didactics, Tutberidze’s works selected for this retrospective are a study of human nature, Georgian character, and the transformations taking place in contemporary societies from historical and mythological perspectives. His camera exposes the inner motives of protagonists with love and care, witty insights, and melancholic camera movements. Meticulous interior settings and minute visual details let us imagine how his protagonists live and what inner motives drive their actions. The subjective camera moves between intimacy and distance, using discreet close-ups and wide shots that reveal the whole picture gradually, focusing on the characters’ innermost and intimate whims, where-as his breathtaking panoramic views of nature are majestic and visually impressive. The Black Sea views from Tutberidze’s Moira on the big screen are striking. They appear like scenes out of dreams, reminding us of Hollywood, often referred to as the “Factory of Dreams,” a connection that has a deeper historical reference to dreams and their analysis if we consider that the first film screenings and the first psychoanalytic sessions in Vienna took place around the same time in the 1890s, as Georgian filmmaker Giorgi Gvakharia repeatedly emphasizes.
Last but not least, Georgian film has a very long tradition and glorious past. Its beginnings date back to 1912 when Wasil Amashukeli made his documentary The Voyage of Akaki Tsereteli in Racha Lecxumi, considered the first feature-length documentary produced in Georgia. It is said that the Lumière brothers themselves visited Tbilisi. There also exist parts of The Chronicles of Georgian Independence from 1918–1921 made by Germaine Gogitidze that survived destruction. Apart from the centralized Mosfilm, there were only two successful film companies in the Soviet Union at that time – Gruzia Film and the Ukrainian film industry, dating back to the early 1920s. (Kristian Feigelson, Le cinema georgien: À la croisée des générations)
Aleksandre Tsutsunava made the first Georgian feature film, Kristine, in 1916.
In 1956, Magdanas Esel, a Georgian short film by Tengiz Abuladze and Revaz Chkheidze, won the Golden Palm for short film at the Cannes Film Festival, marking a significant early success for Georgian filmmaking.
Also in 1956, Mikheil Kalatozishvili’s Die Kraniche Ziehen won the Golden Palm at Cannes as Best Film. The success of his film occurred during the era of critique of Stalin’s cult.
An extensive retrospective of Georgian film took place in 1988 at the Paris Centre Pompidou, featuring Sergei Parajanov’s Ashugh Qarib (Karib der Spielemann) as the first film of the three-month-long retrospective.
In 1987, Tengiz Abuladze’s Monanieba (Repentance) was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival as a film criticizing Stalinist totalitarian rule during perestroika.
This is the third Georgian film retrospective to take place in Germany. The first one was organized by me at the Werkstatt der Kulturen in 2015, followed by a retrospective featuring women in Georgian film, which we produced in Stuttgart in cooperation with Theater am Olgaeck.
As political contexts in the Caucasus worsen and the globalized world rages from one cri-sis to the next, there is plenty for contemporary filmmakers to explore in their cinematography. For the film industry itself, it could be an opportunity for survival in the worst crisis it has ever experienced. One cannot claim that film will save the world from war, corrupt poli-ticians, or poverty, but through its visual intensity, moving images can make an emotional impact on audiences, making them more aware of their power, which leaves us all with a chance against failure.
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
26.2.26 – Opening: Scenes from Trial and Error, Tekla Aslanishvili, Documentary, OmU
27.2.26 – The Village, Levan Tutberidze, Feature, OmU
28.2.26 – A State in a State, Tekla Aslanishvili, Documentary, OmU
1.3.26 – Moira, Levan Tutberidze, Feature, OmU
2.3.26 – Mushti/Faust. Medea, Andro Dadiani, Documentary, OmU
Animations: Saba Dolikashvili, Animations
Andro, Dominik Gasser, Documentary, OmU
3.3.26 – The Resting Samurai, Levan Tutberidze, Feature, OmU
4.3.26 – The Mountain Speaks to the Sea, Tekla Aslanishvili, Documentary, OmU
By Dr. Lily Fürstenow
