Georgian Cinema Now will be presented in installments over the course of the coming year, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience the power, artistry, and urgency of contemporary Georgian filmmaking at a time when it is most at risk. Through screenings, conversations, scholarship, and international collaboration, the project will deepen public understanding of Georgia’s cultural landscape and highlight the essential role of independent artists in societies where democratic freedoms are threatened. A delegation of ten filmmakers and experts will visit the San Francisco Bay Area for ten days in late September, creating a festival-like launch for this ongoing retrospective.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Copresenters:
Documentary Association Georgia, Tbilisi
Georgian Film Institute, Tbilisi
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley
Department of Art & Art History, Film & Media Studies, Documentary Film & Video, Stanford Global Studies, and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University

***

Tuesday, September 22 at 3:45 PM
Venue: McMurtry Building, Room 115
In Conversation: Anna Dziapshipa and Keto Kipiani

Self-Portrait Along the Borderline
Anna Dziapshipa (Georgia, 2023)

(Avtoportreti zghvarze). Anna Dziapshipa was born in Tbilisi to an Abkhazian father and a Georgian mother. As a child, her Abkhazian surname was initially associated with her grandfather’s footballing success, but it has since become closely linked to the conflict that has kept the two nations in opposition since 1992. This situation had a profound effect on her childhood and identity, caught in the middle of two warring countries. In Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, the filmmaker returns to the Abkhazian family home built by her grandfather, located in a country that is off-limits to Georgian citizens and still not recognized by Georgia. 
—Alice Riva, Visions du Réel

Written and photographed by Dziapshipa. (50 mins, In Georgian and Russian with English subtitles)

Followed by

It Will Be Better Before
Keto Kipiani (Georgia, 2024)

(Tsarulshi uket ikneba). It Will Be Better Before began as a collaboration between two directors. After five years, one of the directors, Keto Kipiani, re-edited and modified the film, sharing her perspective and feelings throughout the creation process. “The title, with its mixed tenses that collapse time, conveys the confused desperation of a future torn from one’s control . . . a personal story about hanging onto glimmers of meaning but also, implicitly and inevitably, a national one” (Carmen Gray, Senses of Cinema).

Written by Nicolas Kunisz, Photographed by Kipiani. (26 mins, In Georgian and French with English subtitles, Color, DCP, From the artist)

***

BAMPFA info:
Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
For complete information about the screenings and the delegation of ten Georgian independent filmmakers and experts visiting the Bay Area between September 22-October 2, 2026, please see:
https://bampfa.org/program/georgian-cinema-now-part-1

For detailed information related to the symposium:
Georgian Cinema Now Symposium – Activism in Authoritarian Times: The Republic of Georgia as a Case Study
Saturday, September 26 from 11:30 AM – 5 PM
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
Free admission
Please see: https://bampfa.org/event/georgian-cinema-now-symposium

***

Event Image: Anna Dziapshipa: Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, 2023

View on site | Email this event

Georgian Cinema Now will be presented in installments over the course of the coming year, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience the power, artistry, and urgency of contemporary Georgian filmmaking at a time when it is most at risk. Through screenings, conversations, scholarship, and international collaboration, the project will deepen public understanding of Georgia’s cultural landscape and highlight the essential role of independent artists in societies where democratic freedoms are threatened. A delegation of ten filmmakers and experts will visit the San Francisco Bay Area for ten days in late September, creating a festival-like launch for this ongoing retrospective.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Copresenters:
Documentary Association Georgia, Tbilisi
Georgian Film Institute, Tbilisi
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley
Department of Art & Art History, Film & Media Studies, Documentary Film & Video, Stanford Global Studies, and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University

***

Tuesday, September 22 at 7:30 PM
Venue: McMurtry Building, Oshman Hall
In Conversation: Salomé Jashi

Taming the Garden
Salomé Jashi (Georgia/Switzerland/Germany, 2021)

“[An] extraordinary, savagely poetic film.” —Wendy Ide, Observer

(Motviniereba). With astonishing cinematic style, Taming the Garden tracks the surreal uprooting of ancient trees from their Georgian locales. With each removal, tensions flare between workers and villagers. Some see financial incentives—new roads, handsome fees—while others angrily mourn the loss of what was assumed to be an immovable monolith of their town’s collective history and memory. With a steady and shrewdly observant eye, Salomé Jashi documents a single man’s power over Earth’s natural gardens: how majestic living artifacts of a country’s identity can so effortlessly become uprooted by individuals with no connection to the nature they claim as their own. 
—Big World Pictures

Written by Jashi. Photographed by Jashi, Goga Devdariani. (91 mins, In Georgian with English subtitles, Color, DCP, From Big World Pictures)

***

BAMPFA info:
Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
For complete information about the screenings and the delegation of ten Georgian independent filmmakers and experts visiting the Bay Area between September 22-October 2, 2026, please see:
https://bampfa.org/program/georgian-cinema-now-part-1

For detailed information related to the symposium:
Georgian Cinema Now Symposium – Activism in Authoritarian Times: The Republic of Georgia as a Case Study
Saturday, September 26 from 11:30 AM – 5 PM
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
Free admission
Please see: https://bampfa.org/event/georgian-cinema-now-symposium

***

Event Image: Salomé Jashi: Taming the Garden, 2021

View on site | Email this event

Georgian Cinema Now will be presented in installments over the course of the coming year, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience the power, artistry, and urgency of contemporary Georgian filmmaking at a time when it is most at risk. Through screenings, conversations, scholarship, and international collaboration, the project will deepen public understanding of Georgia’s cultural landscape and highlight the essential role of independent artists in societies where democratic freedoms are threatened. A delegation of ten filmmakers and experts will visit the San Francisco Bay Area for ten days in late September, creating a festival-like launch for this ongoing retrospective.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Copresenters:
Documentary Association Georgia, Tbilisi
Georgian Film Institute, Tbilisi
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley
Department of Art & Art History, Film & Media Studies, Documentary Film & Video, Stanford Global Studies, and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University

***

Tuesday, September 29 at 3:45 PM
Venue: McMurtry Building, Room 115
In Conversation: Anka Gujabidze and Salomé Asatiani

Temo Re
Anka Gujabidze (Georgia, 2025)

Salomé Asatiani is a journalist and podcast host at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Georgian Service and co-screenwriter of Temo Re.

With Temo Re, photographer and filmmaker Anka Gujabidze creates a multifaceted portrait of Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi. The protagonist, an actor who earns his living as a motorcycle courier, is played by Temo Rekhviashvili, the author of Courier’s Tales, the novel upon which the film is based. Composed of thousands of black-and-white still images, this unique film won the Best Short Film Award when it premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Written by Gujabidze, Salomé Asatiani, Temo Rekhviashvili, based on Rekhviashvili’s Courier’s Tales, Photographed by Gujabidze, With Rekhviashvili, Mikheil Abramishvili, Natalia Gabisonia, Irakli Grdzelishvili. (50 mins, In Georgian with English subtitles, B&W, DCP, From the artist)

***

BAMPFA info:
Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
For complete information about the screenings and the delegation of ten Georgian independent filmmakers and experts visiting the Bay Area between September 22-October 2, 2026, please see:
https://bampfa.org/program/georgian-cinema-now-part-1

For detailed information related to the symposium:
Georgian Cinema Now Symposium – Activism in Authoritarian Times: The Republic of Georgia as a Case Study
Saturday, September 26 from 11:30 AM – 5 PM
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
Free admission
Please see: https://bampfa.org/event/georgian-cinema-now-symposium

***

Event Image: Anka Gujabidze: Temo Re, 2025

View on site | Email this event

Georgian Cinema Now will be presented in installments over the course of the coming year, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience the power, artistry, and urgency of contemporary Georgian filmmaking at a time when it is most at risk. Through screenings, conversations, scholarship, and international collaboration, the project will deepen public understanding of Georgia’s cultural landscape and highlight the essential role of independent artists in societies where democratic freedoms are threatened. A delegation of ten filmmakers and experts will visit the San Francisco Bay Area for ten days in late September, creating a festival-like launch for this ongoing retrospective.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Copresenters:
Documentary Association Georgia, Tbilisi
Georgian Film Institute, Tbilisi
Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley
Department of Art & Art History, Film & Media Studies, Documentary Film & Video, Stanford Global Studies, and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University

***

Tuesday, September 29 at 7:00 PM
Venue: McMurtry Building, Oshman Hall
In Conversation: Elene Naveriani

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
Elene Naveriani (Georgia/Switzerland, 2023)

(Shashvi shashvi maq’vali). Based on feminist writer Tamta Melashvili’s celebrated novel, this gem of a film follows Etero (Eka Chavleishvili), a forty-eight-year-old woman who lives happily in a provincial Georgian village. Content with her independent lifestyle, Etero’s world is changed by a near-death experience. Naveriani’s deft direction offers a portrait of a woman who doesn’t conform to society, standing in contrast to the norms of present-day Georgia. Beautifully realized, the film’s exceptional use of color and the strong performance by Chavleishvili deliver a work akin to the subtlety and deadpan humor found in the films of Aki Kaurismäki.

Written by Naveriani, Nikoloz Mdivani, based on Tamta Melashvili’s novel. Photographed by Agnesh Pakozdi. With Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chichinadze, Lia Abuladze, Teo Babukhadia. (110 mins, In Georgian with English subtitles, Color, DCP, From Totem Films)

***

BAMPFA info:
Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
For complete information about the screenings and the delegation of ten Georgian independent filmmakers and experts visiting the Bay Area between September 22-October 2, 2026, please see:
https://bampfa.org/program/georgian-cinema-now-part-1

For detailed information related to the symposium:
Georgian Cinema Now Symposium – Activism in Authoritarian Times: The Republic of Georgia as a Case Study
Saturday, September 26 from 11:30 AM – 5 PM
2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720
Free admission
Please see: https://bampfa.org/event/georgian-cinema-now-symposium

***

Event Image: Elene Naveriani: Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, 2023

View on site | Email this event

For well over a century, filmmakers have been shooting documentaries in West and Central Africa, a region that included the colonies of French West and Equatorial Africa and now encompasses fourteen nations and nearly 200 million people. These films played a crucial role in the development of both European and African cinemas yet have been largely ignored by scholars. In the wake of fifty years of French colonial documentary in sub-Saharan Africa- propaganda-infused travel, hunting, expedition, and ethnographic films- African directors reclaimed their cinematic image by challenging outsider claims to authenticity and developing new models for nonfiction. I will highlight the nearly forgotten innovations of the decades following independence to demonstrate how, in a complex network of images and languages and across a dynamic range of modes, African documentarists remade a global art form rooted in oppression, exoticization, and a simplistic conception of filmic realism.

Speaker Bio:

Rachel Gabara is the Nancy Gillespie Brinning Professor in French at the University of Georgia, where her teaching focuses on nonfiction and historical fiction from Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to Documentary Objectives, published earlier this year by Indiana University Press, Gabara’s recent articles address early African film criticism (Global Movie Magazine Networks, University of California Press), cinephilia and modernism in African cinema of the late 1960s and early 70s (Modernism/modernity), and contemporary debates about restitution and archives (Contemporary French Civilization). Her research in Burkina Faso, Senegal, and France has been supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

https://iupress.org/9780253074805/documentary-objectives/

View on site | Email this event