Latest Events
- 10th London Georgian Film Festival
London Georgian Film Festival — 10th Edition
Beyond the Village | 1–4 October | Ciné Lumière
Join us for the 10th edition of the London Georgian Film Festival, four days celebrating the richness, boldness and extraordinary heritage of Georgian cinema. From International and UK Premieres to restored classics and special guest Q&As, this year’s festival explores the many ways Georgian filmmakers have captured a country caught between tradition, modernity and profound social change.
From 1–4 October, Ciné Lumière becomes the home of Georgian cinema for the most significant Georgian cultural event in the UK.
The Wishing Tree
Thursday 1 October — Opening Night
The Opening Film is The Wishing Tree (1976), marking 50 years since its release. One of Georgia’s most visually rich and poetic films, it offers a spectacular mosaic of pre-revolutionary village life, where social conventions, rituals and traditions shape human destiny.
Earlier in the day the festival starts with a screening of Lucky Village (1993), the first Anglo-Georgian feature film. Commissioned by legendary Film4 pioneer David Rose and starring Tim Pigott-Smith, the film is set in a psychiatric hospital in sniper-torn Tbilisi.
Friday 2 October — New Voices and a Georgian Classic
Friday brings three UK premieres.
9-Month Contract (2025) is an award-winning documentary exploring surrogacy in Georgia through an intimate portrait of a single mother and her teenage daughter.
The Kartli Kingdom (2025) arrives following its success on the international festival circuit and its Best Directing award at IDFA.
The day concludes with a celebration of renowned Georgian director Eldar Shengelaia (1933–2025) and the first UK big-screen presentation of his 1977 comic gem, Samanishvili’s Stepmother
Pirosmani
Saturday 3 October — Village, Memory and Identity
Saturday features the International Premiere of Early Winter’s Sorrow (2025), a compelling portrait of a remote Georgian village struggling to survive the encroachments of the modern world while facing harassment from Russian soldiers.
We also present Pirosmani (1969), a cinematic tribute to Georgia’s greatest painter, celebrated for its ‘primitive magic and striking art direction’.
Songs of Georgia (2009) takes audiences on a unique musical journey through Georgia’s diverse regions and cultural traditions, some of them thousands of years old.
High in the remote mountains of present-day Tusheti, the UK Premiere Placekeepers (2025) offers an atmospheric glimpse into the lives of the few people who remain year-round in this rugged, semi-nomadic region.
Placekeepers
Sunday 4 October — Closing Day
The final day begins with Otar Iosseliani’s early masterpiece Pastorale (1975), which captures the clash between a Tbilisi string quartet and a rural village community.
Next comes the acclaimed 2025 feature Dry Leaf, followed by an exclusive Q&A with director Alexandre Koberidze.
The festival’s Closing Film is a further tribute to Eldar Shengelaia (1993-2025) with his debut Georgian feature, The White Caravan (1963), a poetic exploration of the tension between traditional rural life and the forces of modernity.
Dry Leaf
9-day intensive Workshop with Nana Ekvtimishvili and Alexandre Koberidze Together with the Georgian Film Institute (GFI), Life Through Cinema is holding a workshop
Shared Frames, pairing Georgian and Ukrainian filmmakers, students and enthusiasts to produce 3 – 5 minute short films over 9 days, which will be screened on the closing night of the London Georgian Film Festival. - Independence Day 2026
British Georgian Society and UCL Georgian Society are hosting an Independence Day celebration right in the heart of the City of London at St Vedast alias Foster, 4 Foster Lane, EC2V 6HH, by St Paul’s Cathedral, from 6.30pm – 8.30pm on Tuesday 26th May.
6.30pm Arrivals
6.40pm 2 dances Samaia and Jeiriani performed by Ertoba Children Dancers directed by Shalva Kavtaradze and Guka Tsiklauri
6.55pm Introduction by Jason Osborn (Interim Chair of BGS) followed by Eric Lee (author, historian and expert on the 1918 – 1921 Georgian Democratic Republic) giving some historical context and background to early Independence Days and the 1918 Republic. Followed by Mariam Vekua (previous Chair of UCL Georgian Society and post graduate student in London) will give a personal reflection on what Independence means for her.
7.15pm Giorgi Guliashvili (tenor) and Salome Jordania (piano) will perform a Chopin piano solo, 2 Italian songs and 3 Georgian songs
8pm Maryam d’Abo (actor/producer and granddaughter of a hero of the 1918 republic General Kvinitadze) will give a toast to Georgia based on her memories of growing up in her grandfather’s house near Paris.
Maryam (centre) with her grandfather Giorgi Kvinitadze at the family home in Chatou, Paris
The evening will finish with 3 songs from the Georgian choir Imano
8.30pm Departures
Georgian snacks provided by Geamos
- 9th London Georgian Film Festival
9th London Georgian Film Festival
2 – 6 October Ciné Lumière
Vision and diversity amidst political hostility
The 9th edition of the London Georgian Film Festival opens with one of themost innovative and visually exciting films from the whole of Georgiancinema; My Grandmother (Chemi bebia, 1929), is inspired Georgian Soviet avant-garde and a deep satire on bureaucracy. Banned for 50 years, it is staggeringly original and not to be missed.
The Closing Film is the UK Premiere of Imago 2025 directed by Déni Oumar Pitsaev, who will be here for a Q&A. Set in the Pankisi Valley in eastern Georgia, this poetic and personal documentary is the first Chechen feature to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival and picked up the top documentary prize, the Golden Eye (L’Œil d’or).
We celebrate the work of internationally award-winning Georgian Swedish director Levan Akin, screening both his feature films And Then We Danced (Da chven vitsek’vet, 2019) and Crossing (2024). Levan will be in London for a Q&A.
The festival welcomes two young Georgian filmmakers with films premiered in international film festivals. Tiku Kobiashvili’s Inner Blooming Springs (Shinagani gazapkhulebis q’vaviloba, 2025) premiered at Berlin, and Anka Gujabidze’s Temo Re (2025), won a prestigious Tiger Short Award and the KNF (Circle of Dutch Film Journalists) Award earlier this year at Rotterdam.
Don’t miss the London premiere of Elena Mikaberidze’s documentary Blueberry Dreams, and the UK premiere of Tato Kotetishvili’s Holy Electricity (Tsminda electroenergia), winner of the Golden Leopard Best Film at the Locarno Film Festival 2024, and a special programme of 5 Shorts from Emerging Voices of Georgian Cinema.
Meet leading directors Dito Tsintsadze, with his black comedy from 2000 Lost Killers, and the renowned Hollywood director Rouben Mamoulian, born in Tbilisi in October 1897, and a special 35mm projection of his first film, the early ‘talkie’ Applause (1929).
Life Through Cinema and Ciné Lumière have arranged a 20% discount for BGS members on the following screenings, the code which has been emailed to members should be applied when tickets are booked online. Blueberry Dreams 3 October 6.15pm Holy Electricity 3 October 8.30pm Inner Blooming Springs and Temo Re 4 October 6pm
- 8th London Georgian Film Festival
2 – 6 October 2024 Ciné Lumière
- London Georgian Film Festival 2023:
Reflections On The Black Sea 28th September – 3rd October
Here is a list of the seven Georgian films all at Ciné Lumière in South Kensington
- First Swallow Pirveli Mertskhali 1975 Nana Mchelidze 2.00pm Saturday 30th September – Delightful film about the first football team in Georgia.
- The Port That Never Was 2022 Stefan Tolz 4.05pm Saturday 30th September – In depth look at the story of the attempt to build a deep-sea port at Anaklia.
- Bela 1927 Vladimir Barskiy 2.00pm Sunday 1st October – UK premiere of restored silent film based on Lermontov’s A Hero Of Our Time. Live piano by John Sweeney.
- Taming The Garden 2021 Salomé Jashi 6.00pm Monday 2nd October – brilliant documentary about century-old-trees being uprooted and transported along the Black Sea coast.
- Glasses Crack, Tablecloths Splinter…2022 Anna Japaridze 8.00pm Monday 2nd October – Fascinating short film looking at Georgia’s undigitized home video cassettes.
- Let Us Flow Vidinot 2023 Sophio Medoidze 8.00pm Monday 2nd October – A poetic documentary about Tusheti and it’s traditional summer festival.
- A Room Of My Own Chemi otakhi 2022 Ioseb ‘Soso’ Bliadze 8.00pm Tuesday 3rd October – The closing film of the festival. There will be a ‘cocktail hour’ reception before the film at the cinema which will be available through Eventbrite.
- Repression of Writers in Soviet Georgia: A BGS Talk on 4th September 2023 at 6.30pm
British Georgian Society, TALK
REPRESSION OF WRITERS – in Soviet Georgia
The Athenaeum Club, LONDON. SW1Y 5ER
4th September 2023, 6.30pm
Most writers have experienced some form of censorship, or even repression. But none even remotely to the degree of Soviet Georgia’s Union of Writers in 1937. During the Great Terror, nearly all were forced to write denouncements of their closest friends, or love poems to Stalin and the Party. Failure to do so could be a death warrant. By its end, one quarter of the Union would be dead, either to murder or suicide.
Tbilisi’s powerful new Museum of Repressed Writers, documents such far reaching effects of censorship. Not only on the lives and families of writers – but culture in general. It shows the mechanics of repression – archive documents with the phrases ‘to be executed’ against names; communal statements declaring the nation’s finest writers ‘vile parasites;’ film footage of poets reciting devotional poems to leaders of the Communist Party – who they hated. The systematic polarisation of public and private life – on an epic scale. And a warning to us all.
Professor DONALD RAYFIELD
is one of the world’s top scholars on literature during Georgia’s (and Russia’s) Soviet period. His book ‘The Literature of Georgia,’ originally published by Oxford University’s Clarendon Press in 1994, provides a vivid documentation and overview of the material in the Museum. He is a lively and knowledgeable speaker, creator of the first official Georgian-English dictionary, and first-time translator of many excellent Georgian texts into English, via his own Garnet Press.
NATASHA LOMOURI
is the Director of Tbilisi’s Writer’s House, container of the Museum of Repressed Writers. The Museum and its untold story, had been her dream for years, finally realised this year with help from US Aid Georgia. The Writer’s House is the actual home of the Writer’s Union of Georgia and its elegant, Art Nouveau rooms witness to many of the dramas now so graphically displayed on its walls. She will be showing us material from the Museum.
The ATHENAEUM CLUB (and dress code)
with its origins in literature and science, book-lined walls, eminent members and elegant chambers, is the perfect venue for such a talk. True to its belief in the contemplative, it asks mobile phones are switched to silent and dress code is smart. No trainers, denim, sports clothing. Men are requested to wear ties. We are kindly invited by one of its members – and British Georgian Society ex-officio Board Member, Craig Oliphant. The event will be held upstairs in its Smoking Room.
Booking
Tickets are bookable through Eventbrite and must be booked in advance by 28th August. The cost is £10 for BGS members and £20 for non-members. Members please first email the BGS for the discount code at info@britishgeorgiansociety.org. We will send it. It can then be applied when ordering.
- Georgia’s Digital World
Georgia’s Digital World
Tuesday 25th July at 6pm
Room 113, UCL, 26 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AP
As you arrive at Tbilisi airport there is a Bitcoin ATM facing you. Georgia has long been on the radar of crypto entrepreneurs since energy-intensive crypto-mining exploded in Svaneti and to some extent Khaketi. Georgia is also currently a hotspot for digital nomads with Tbilisi as its beating heart offering fantastic opportunities. Recently the global Indigo Design Awards took place on the stunning rooftop of the Stamba Hotel. What are the implications and what will the future hold? Or perhaps you’re interested in finding out about blockchain, web3 and NFTs. BGS is delighted to welcome two young lively speakers with a wealth of experience to introduce us to Georgia’s Digital World, followed by Georgian wine and canapés.
Kitty Horlick recently lived and worked in Tbilisi developing NFTs with various companies and digital artists. She is the founder of Blackwood, a consultancy firm focused on onboarding traditional businesses into web3 and its associated technologies including blockchain, NFTs, the metaverse and cryptocurrencies. As well as running Blackwood, Kitty remains closely involved in a selection of web 3 projects. She is a Director at Rarify Services which develops the protocols and infrastructure required to transfer NFTs and cryptocurrencies between blockchains. In addition to her background in blockchain, Kitty is an experienced communications expert and a vivid storyteller. She has worked as a PR executive for Portland Communications, and a multi-media journalist, writing for publications such as The Sunday Times and producing award-winning documentaries.
Liza Zhvania is currently a post-graduate student at LSE, Msc in Media and Communications: Data and Society. After graduating from Yale University with a Bachelor in Mathematics and Philosophy, she went back to Georgia to pursue a professional career as a media and cultural manager. Past roles include being an Editor in Chief at Liberali – online political and literary magazine, campaign manager at Greens (Georgia) – an environmentalist movement, producer at Rustavi 2 – Broadcasting company. In 2018 she founded MAUDI. – artist-run multidisciplinary arts space, hosting exhibitions, concerts, screenings and artist-talks.
RSVP essential due to changed security arrangements at UCL and limited places.
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