
From September 14 to October 26, DOCA Film Club presents a new program.
Curator's Note
Studying Georgian documentary cinema is one of the most fascinating and moving processes. It involves exploring its history, memory, forms, language, stories, and thematic range, and, in parallel, understanding the challenges, pain, struggles, official narratives, and authorial searches of that time.
What's fascinating is discovering films made across different decades, bringing them back to life, and returning them, both to the screen and to spaces of discussion, research, and everyday life. This process resembles archaeology: a search through images, people's voices, biographies, cultural and critical contexts, and the history of the country itself.
The history of Georgian cinema as a whole is also suspended between myth and reality with its own treasury, told stories, fiction and truth alike. The discovery and study of the history of Georgian documentary cinema, however, is only now beginning. This programme, too, resembles gathering fragments from a great, shared archive of memory, from the 1970s and 1980s. This is the period when documentary cinema stands even more firmly between myth and reality, though this tension is embedded in its very foundation. Where is reality here? Where is the official voice? Where is the author's gaze and perspective?
On the path of transformation from Soviet reality to an independent country, this programme will present: the visualization of labor; poetry and politics; authorial voices; imagery that sometimes says more than the voice-over; visual and acoustic experiments; women as fighters, workers, exhausted yet unbroken; the art of observing everyday life and the attempt to enter into dialogue with that reality, whether through creative language or precise documentation. Most importantly, you will encounter people's lives, the memory of places, and unique forms, from 1967 through 1990, stories that have much to tell us.
Georgian Documentary Cinema of the 1970s–1980s
films

14/09/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme - Director: Sergei Parajanov
21’ / 1985
School in the Mountains - Director: Teimuraz Dolidze
10’ / 1978
სიზმრებიდან ყოფამდე - ორი რადიკალურად განსხვავებული ფორმა, რომელიც გვიჩვენებს, რამდენად ფართო შეიძლება იყოს დოკუმენტური კინოს დიაპაზონი. ერთი მხრივ, ფარაჯანოვის სიზმრისეული, პოეტური და ჯადოსნური ენა, რომელიც ფიროსმანის სამყაროს მოხელთებას ცდილობს; მეორე მხრივ კი, ობსერვაციული ფილმი, რომელიც მთაში მცხოვრები ბავშვების ყოველდღიურობას აკვირდება.

21/09/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
Haymaking Month - Director: Merab Gagua
9’ / 1980
The Bakers - Director: Bidzina Rachvelishvili
10’ / 1970
Roads of the Riggers - Director: Nikolai Kuzanov
10’ / 1986
Wilderness - Director: Alexandre (Dato) Kokrashvili, Sandro Tushmalishvili
16’ / 1982
Silent Labor, the Poetry of Labor - The visualization of human labor was particularly important during this period. These films share with us the art of contemplation and the true magic of everyday routine.

28/09/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
Women Behind the Stone Wall - Director: Tengiz Malania
20’ / 1990
Tushetian Carpet - Director: Shergil Shonia
10’ / 1972
Whose Heart Aches - Director: Maia Kavtaradze
10’ / 1989
Portraits of Women — Between Everyday Life and Challenges

05/10/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
Kolkhida - Director: Soso Chkhaidze
20’ / 1967
A special screening and conversation around Soso Chkhaidze's Kolkhida. The film's unique visual language in its depiction of space and human labor, sits on the border between the real and the mythical. The film represents an important act of memory in twentieth-century Georgian documentary cinema, turning the thematic and visual impulses of several decades into a subject for engaging discussion.

12/10/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
Mtatsminda - Director: Vazha Zubashvili
16’ / 1980
The Director - Director: Vazha Zubashvili
26’ / 1982
Somewhere There Was a War - Director: Vazha Zubashvili
20’ / 1989
Vazha Zubashvili Retrospective - The memory of the 1980s, captured in the cinema of Vazha Zubashvili, across different themes, forms, and reflections on the time and its challenges. His camera offers an intriguing reflection on places, the myths attached to them, and, most importantly, on the human condition. Mtatsminda and its unconventional portrait, visual and acoustic, with linguistic explorations; a portrait of a female Soviet-era director and her daily life, conveyed with lightness and lively observation; and, finally, a look back at the trauma of people who fought in war.

19/10/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
The First-Footer - Director: Goderdzi Chokheli
15’ / 1981
Start - Director: Mikheil Chiaureli
10’ /1981
Love - Director: Leo Bakradze
25’ / 1985
Advertisement - Director: "Aromati" Coffee Grinder
3’ /1973
Visual-Acoustic Exploration - A varied set of films in which image, sound, and rhythm become essential elements of storytelling. Poetic observation, mountain space, human movement, and experimental form and editing. On the other hand, conversation and storytelling, and, finally, an advertisement from this period, which is itself an interesting visual artifact.

26/10/2026 19:00 Amirani Cinema
New Year - Director: Kakha Melitauri, Davit Shengelidze
88’ / 1982
Urban Life of the 1980s
We would like to thank Amirani cinema for providing the cinema for the Film Club.

