There goes a good and popular man in Georgia, whose name is Givi Sikharulidze. Ask anyone in the street and you will get a prompt answer about his beaming personality: author, poet, agronomist, dancer, athlete, actor, public figure and, most importantly, a wonderful family man. The two sons this diversely talented, intelligent, flamboyant, heartful and ever youngish octogenarian has reared as a widower are both chips off the old block. Jaba, the senior, is a professional dancer and a lawyer by education; Beka, the junior, 44, is an actor and movie director, happily living and working in America. His late mother was a medical doctor and a genuine bulwark of the family. They say Beka’s dad did his sincerest utmost to save the life of his beloved lifetime comrade-in-arms, but his efforts failed against her perfidious malady, and so the boys were left in the hands of their caring father, who never remarried after his loss. And, behold, the boys turned into two very good and special men of their generation.
Beka’s cinematographic career is simply unbelievable, and deserves to be better known in his native country. To date, Beka’s masterpiece ‘From Life to Life’ (starring Givi and Beka Sikharulidze, Nino Kuratashvili, Ia Shugliashvili and Roman Gventsadze, and, for the briefest moment of a scene, our own Editor-in-Chief Katie Ruth Davies) has so far earned 12 international film awards and eight nominations.
The story is set in 1990s Sakartvelo after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The main protagonist of the film, Luka, is a surgical doctor, who is eager to save human lives but is compelled to fiercely scuffle to somehow adjust to the merciless and shady system, doing his possible best to remain faithful to his vocation. The central idea of the plot is that he is being torn apart between the need to take care of his own family and his desire to protect the lives of those who need his help, even if it means the loss of his career. The difficulty Luka faces is dramatically conducive to the irretrievable result of his decisions.
Beka Sikharulidze is the author of the script, director and the main character of this movie that so sensitively touches upon the most vulnerable of human attitudes and the depths of relationships between them.
The latest of the awards was received at the Apulia Festival in Italy for the Best Actor nomination. Especially notable is the People’s Choice Award at the celebrated 32nd Chichester Film Festival in the UK, a significant event that has been a genuine inspiration for cinematic brilliance for more than 30 years.
Another recognition of Beka’s opus, which is definitely worth mentioning as one of his myriad recognitions, is his winning the award for Best Cinematography at the Montelupo Fiorentino International Independent Film Festival. ‘From Life to Life’ was also named the winner of the Best European Film Award at the Chandler International Film Festival. The winner of the International Motion Pictures Award at the famed Madrid Film Festival then carried on its triumphant march towards the pinnacles of cinematographic magnificence, receiving three nominations at the eighth annual festival in Chandler, Arizona, right before having been named the Best European Film of 2024. And that’s not all: the film received two awards at Socially Relevant Film Festival, NY, a special prize from the jury, and an award for the best male role. The founder of the festival, actress and producer Nora Armani, an Egyptian citizen of Armenian origin, spoke to Voice of America about Beka’s film, underlining its modern-day topicality, noting that viewers make emotional parallels between their lives and the main character’s life-size feats, which is why such huge interest has been seen towards this movie from such a faraway and little-known land.
On top of all that, Beka is an outstanding dancer, having toured the world on his tiptoes as the Georgian national dance would have it. He is also a wonderful tennis player, once a champion of Georgia among youth. At the age of 19, he won a black belt in Karate. In the United States, he founded the Beka Tennis Academy, where he used to coach a number of celebrated Hollywood stars. He went to the New York Film Academy and to the University of California, Los Angeles, to master the art of movie direction. Beka has been a member of the American Screen Actors Guild since 2004, and, in 2014, he founded his own movie company, named Beka Film Productions, which debuted with an amazingly exciting short film Grandpa’s Debtor telling his father’s life story. Having received international recognition, the film hit the screens in as many as 86 countries. Beka’s breakthrough in Hollywood is connected with Steven Soderbergh’s 2022 thriller ‘Kimi,’ in which he starred as a Russian hacker.
And, the recent cherry on the cake: Beka Sikharulidze is the only Georgian to enjoy official documental recognition of the mayor of New York, Erik Adams, as well as of the United States Congress, initiated by congressman Hakeem Jeffries, for his substantial contribution to the development of the metropolis and for dedicated service to the American nation.
There is one more unavoidable side of Beka Sikharulidze’s life, and that’s his absolutely wonderful family – his wife Maia and two boys, Givi and Luka, who are growing up in America, but who speak Georgian perfectly well thanks to their parents’ tireless daily efforts. Maia is a spouse who has always stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband in any doing they have embarked on together during their lifetime. They even sold their houses in Los Angeles and Tbilisi to finish the production of From Life to Life. Doesn’t that speak volumes about this amazing couple?
Blog by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
