Georgisches Filmfestival
For this retrospective, a selection of feature films by Georgian director Levan Tutberidze has been compiled, as well as documentaries representing the work of a younger generation of Georgian filmmakers: Tekla Aslanishvili, Andro Dadiani, Saba Dolikashvili, and Dominik Gasser from Germany.
Image gallery
Gegen das Scheitern, Plakat
Although they belong to different genres and come from different periods, both the feature films and the documentaries deal with societies in the Caucasus after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The historical background plays a central role in this.
The focus is on populations in crisis situations, traumatized by military conflicts in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and by the wars in Abkhazia and Ossetia, which led to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in the territories of Georgia and the Caucasus.
Added to this are the long-term consequences of these conflicts: economic instability, corrupt governments, waves of nationalism in the former Soviet republics, massive unemployment, and ideologically polarized societies.
Both feature films and documentaries subject the Caucasus—with its majestic nature and impressive diversity of peoples—to critical scrutiny.
The united, peaceful Caucasus, as imagined by the avant-garde filmmakers of the 1920s with their utopian idea of “unity in diversity,” proved to be a failed project, as the ongoing conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region tragically demonstrates. The Caucasus itself—with its picturesque coastal landscapes and breathtaking mountain panoramas, as seen in Levan Tutberidze's films Moira and The Journey to Karabakh—becomes one of the central protagonists of both the feature films and the documentary works.
At their core, selected feature films deal with how geopolitical power struggles for spheres of influence in this small but strategically extremely important region at the interface between the so-called East and West have deformed and destroyed human lives.
- Text (abridged): Dr. Lily Fürstenow
FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
- 26.2.26. Eröffnung. Scenes from Trial and Error. Tekla Aslanishvili. Doku. OmU
- 27.2.26. The Village. Levan Tutberidze. Feature. OmU
- 28.2.26. A State in a State. Tekla Aslanishvili. Doku. OmU
- 1.3.26. Moira. Levan Tutberidze. Feature. OMU
- 2.3.26. Mushti/Faust. Medea. Andro Dadiani. Doku. OmU; Animations. Saba Dolikashvili. Animations; Andro. Dominik Gasser. Doku. OmU
- 3.3.26. The Resting Samurai. Levan Tutberidze. Feature. OmU
- 4.3.26. The Mountain Speaks to the Sea. Tekla Aslanishvili. Doku. OmU
