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House on the Volcano
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan • 1928 • USSR/Armenia/Azerbaijan
To celebrate the centenary of Armenian film, we present a new restoration of this neglected silent classic by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan, the founding father of the nation’s cinema. A co-production of the Armenian and Azerbaijani national stu...
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We Are Our Mountains
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Henrik Malyan • 1969 • USSR/Armenia
When a petty dispute over a lost sheep gets out of hand, a group of shepherds find their mountain idyll interrupted by the long arm of the law in Henrik Malyan’s cult Soviet satire, adapted from his own work by beloved Armenian author Hrant Matevos...
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Jirtdan
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Aghanaghi Akhundov and Yalchin Efendiyev • 1969 • USSR/Azerbaijan
Produced at the start of the golden age of Azerbaijani animation, Akhundov and Efendiyev’s Jirtdan (meaning “small” or “dwarf”) is a magical little treat in which the titular tiny hero and his brothers must outwit the ...
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What We Shared
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Kamila Kuc • 2021 • Poland/Abkhazia
Kamila Kuc’s radically empathetic exploration of the de facto Black Sea state of Abkhazia raises profound questions about displacement, memory, and trauma. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a brutal war between separatist Abkhazia and the Geo...
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5 Dreamers and a Horse
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Vahagn Khachatryan and Aren Malakyan • 2022 • Armenia
A group portrait that captures the hybrid nature of modern-day Armenia, Vahagn Khachatryan and Aren Malakyan’s dreamlike documentary explores the gaps between fantasy and reality in the lives of four characters. Karen is a farmer ...
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Salt for Svanetia
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov • 1930 • USSR/Georgia
The directorial debut of Mikhail Kalatozov – who would go on to electrify Soviet cinema with his Palme d’Or-winning The Cranes are Flying – Salt for Svanetia is a groundbreaking work of radical ethnographic documentary. Capturing the lives of t...
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My Grandmother
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Kote Mikaberidze • 1929 • USSR/Georgia
This explosive, wildly inventive, and criminally under-seen gem from Kote Mikaberidze burst out of Georgia in 1929. An absurdist satire of bureaucracy, the film follows the hapless Georgiy and his struggle to overcome a cruel administrative syst...
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Some Interviews on Personal Matters
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Lana Gogoberidze • 1978 • USSR/Georgia
A pioneering work of feminist filmmaking from the legendary Lana Gogoberidze, Some Interviews on Personal Matters is one of the most vital films produced in Soviet Georgia. The iconic Sofiko Chiaureli (The Colour of Pomegranates) stars as a jour...
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Keto and Kote
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Vakhtang Tabliashvili and Shalva Gedevanishvili • 1948 • USSR/Georgia
Georgia’s first musical, Keto and Kote is a baroque love story about the triumph of youth and ingenuity over cynicism and greed. Keto (Medea Japaridze), the daughter of a rich merchant from Tbilisi, and Kote (Batu ...
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The Wishing Tree
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1976 • USSR/Georgia
This adaptation of Giorgi Leonidze’s short stories sees twenty-two episodes coalesce into one phantasmagoric narrative. Set in pre-revolutionary Georgia, it follows a young woman forced into marriage by her village elders despite her love for ano...
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Cold as Marble
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Asif Rustamov • 2022 • Azerbaijan
Asif Rustamov’s erotic, ironic psychodrama is a breath of fresh air for Azerbaijani cinema. A struggling, one-eyed artist (Elshen Esgerov) ekes out a living carving gravestones while engaged in a passionate but provocative affair with a married woman...
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Autumn Sun
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Bagrat Oganesyan • 1977 • USSR / Armenia
Strikingly progressive and beautifully crafted, Bagrat Oganesyan’s Autumn Sun tells the story of Aghun (a bravado performance by the director’s own wife, Anahit Gukasyan), a simple woman forced to contend with the banal cruelties of the men wh...
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Blue Mountains
Movie + 6 extras
Directed by Eldar Shengelaia • 1983 • USSR/Georgia
This deft satire of Soviet bureaucracy from one of Georgian cinema’s great poets follows Soso, an aspiring novelist looking to publish his latest manuscript. It soon becomes apparent that the publishing house is staffed by a host of oblivious em...
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An Unusual Exhibition
Movie + 6 extras
Directed by Eldar Shengalaia • 1968 • USSR/Georgia
An Unusual Exhibition is a typically playful and melancholic work by one of Georgia’s best-loved directors. Charting the artistic frustration and romantic elation of Aguli, a down-on-his-luck sculptor forced to produce gravestones in order to su...
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Look at These Young People!
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Revaz Chkheidze • 1969 • USSR/Georgia
It is the summer of 1941, and a group of idealistic Georgian students are graduating. Their hopes for the future, however, are scuppered by the impending war. Dreams are swapped for soldiers’ overcoats as they are dispatched to the front line, wh...
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A Piece of Sky
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Henrik Malyan • 1980 • USSR/Armenia
Nothing is easy for Torik, a shy orphan adopted by his aunt and uncle: he struggles to fit into village life, learn a craft, or find a wife. When Torik does fall in love – with Anjel, a local prostitute – he must face down the disapproval of his na...
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The Plea
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1968 • USSR/Georgia
Based on the works of the Georgian poet Vazha-Pshavela, this influential classic follows a Christian soldier in the Caucasus at the turn of the twentieth century. When he refuses to cut off his enemy’s hand, he is ostracised by his fellow village...
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Hakob Hovnatanyan
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1967 • Armenia/USSR
After completing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and before embarking on The Colour of Pomegranates, the great Sergei Parajanov produced this exquisite miniature about the work of Hakob Hovnatanyan, a nineteenth-century Armenian portraitist rever...
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What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Alexandre Koberidze • 2021 • Georgia
Alexandre Koberidze’s existential fairy tale unfolds like a dream over a long, hot summer of thwarted romance and World Cup fever. In Georgia’s ancient capital Kutaisi, pharmacist Lisa (Oliko Barbakadze) and footballer Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) f...
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Repentance
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1987 • USSR/Georgia
Tengiz Abuladze’s black comic allegory – the first instance of a Soviet filmmaker directly confronting the legacy of Stalin’s purges – caused a sensation when it first aired on Georgian television. Unfolding over two timelines, the film combines ...
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There Once Was a Singing Blackbird
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Otar Iosseliani • 1970 • USSR/Georgia
This lyrical caper, shot in gorgeous, low contrast black and white, portrays 36 hours in the life of Gia: a young man still living with his mother and struggling to meet social and professional expectations. A talented percussionist in the Tbilis...
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The Dazzling Light of Sunset
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Salomé Jashi • 2016 • Georgia
Dariko and Khaka are the husband-and-wife team behind Jikha TV: an ultra-low-budget local news station in the remote Georgian town of Tsalenjikha. The pair run the station out of their own home, chasing down stories with a sense of professional pride tha...
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Lost Killers
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Dito Tsintsadze • 2001 • Germany/Georgia
Dito Tsintsadze’s anarchic hitmen caper offers a delirious account of life on the fringes of the diaspora. Unfolding in the sedate German city of Mannheim, Lost Killers sees a gang of illegal immigrants go to ludicrous lengths in a frantic bid...