The Pushkin Club presents a screening of Something about Georgia (2009) and a Q&A with Its director, Nino Kirtadze.
“This film has a universal value for all wars with their fundamentally intolerable violence” - Jean Perret
Still from Something about Georgia (2009), courtesy of Nino Kirtadze.
Nino Kirtadze’s documentary Something About Georgia was made in 2009, soon after Russia’s war against Georgia in August 2008. The director has the clarity of vision to consider dramatic events in their complexity: the amazing beauty of her native land being destroyed by war; the incomprehension of ordinary men and women behind their ruined windows and in front of their destroyed houses; President Saakashvili, who tried to turn his country towards democracy, seen here both as a powerful leader and in moments of anxiety and dismay.
Release date: December 1, 2009 (Georgia)
Countries of origin: Georgia, France
Language: Georgian with English subtitles
Production company: Arte France/ Zadig Productions
Length: 102 minutes
Still from Something about Georgia (2009), courtesy of Nino Kirtadze.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
European Film Academy-award-winning director Nino Kirtadze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a degree in Literature. She is one of the few Georgian directors who made her cinematic debut in France and quickly established herself as one of the leading documentary filmmakers in Europe. Her films deal with difficult and controversial subjects, placing the accent on the human drama and creating deep insightful human portraits.
Kirtadze’s films have won international acclaim and numerous prestigious awards at festivals worldwide. The highlights include Best Director Prize at Sundance for Durakovo-Village of Fools, the European Film Academy award and Visions du Réel Grand Prize for Pipeline Next Door, Germany’s top documentary award, the Adolf Grimme Gold, for Chechen Lullaby and the Cinema du Réel award for Tell My Friends that I’m Dead. Her film Don’t Breathe which extends the borders of documentary and places this dark comedy on the edge of documentary and fiction premiered in Toronto IFF.
Nino Kirtadze is also a scriptwriter and actress. Her acting career started by the lead role in a Chef in Love, a film by Nana Djordjadze, which was presented in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar.
Nino Kirtadze has worked with Peter Brook, Vittorio Gassman, Philippe Monnier, Jean-Pierre Ameris, Claude Goretta, Jacques Perrin, Olivier Langlois. During the troubled years in the Caucasus in the 1990s she worked as a war correspondent for the AFP and for the AP, covering the war in Chechnya and other armed conflicts in the region.
Since 1997, Nino Kirtadze has lived in France. She is a member of European Film Academy, Member of SCAM France’s directors and authors Society and since 2019 she is also the Georgian representative in Eurimages, the cultural support fund of the Council of Europe.