Directed by Sergei Parajanov and Dodo Abashidze • 1985 • USSR/Georgia

Marking Sergei Parajanov’s return to filmmaking after 15 years of imprisonment and censorship, The Legend of Suram Fortress is a dazzling reimagining of Georgian national legend. Unfolding across two mirrored storylines, one i...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Directed by Sergei Parajanov and Dodo Abashidze • 1988 • Georgia/USSR

The exquisite final feature from Sergei Parajanov, Ashik Kerib is an intoxicating homage to the folk legends of Azerbaijan. Based on the writings of Parajanov’s beloved Mikhail Lermontov, the film relates the adventures of the...

Directed by Zara Jian • 2024 • Armenia

In 2022, as war rages in Ukraine and tensions mount over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian filmmaker Zara Jian returns to her homeland in search of artistic and political inspiration. She finds it in the creativity and bravery of Sergei Parajanov, the celebrated a...

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...

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 ...

Directed by Maria Rigel • 2025 • Armenia

Maria Rigel’s mercurial crime drama moves to the rhythms of the natural world, paying tribute to Armenian film icons like Sergei Parajanov. Hayk (Albert Babajanyan) is an introverted child living in the care of his aunt Narine (Lusine Avanesyan) in a remo...

Directed by Orkhan Aghazadeh • 2024 • Azerbaijan

In Soviet times, Samid worked as a village projectionist. Nowadays, the cinemas are long gone and he gets by repairing TV sets, beset with grief at the loss of his adult son. But a run-in with local teenager Ayaz, a passionate DIY filmmaker, reawa...

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 ...

Directed by Luka Beradze • 2023 • Georgia

During the 2012 presidential elections in Georgia, the incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili made a strange offer to citizens in the country’s neglected rural outposts: in exchange for their votes, his party would provide them with new teeth. Residents began to ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...