TBILISI-TBILISI
DIRECTOR: LEVAN ZAKAREJSVILI
GEORGIA 2005
87 MIN / 35MM, COLOR + B&W, OV w. engl. ST

Caligari: 07.04. / 8.00 pm
Alpha: 08.04. / 6.00 pm

DIRECTOR:
Levan Zakarejsvili

SCREENPLAY:
Levan Zakarejsvili

CAMERA:
Archil Ahvlediani
Georgij Masharasvili
Georgij Beridze
Badri Vasadze
Zaza Zomaja
Suliko Melasvili
Gela Chinchaladze

ART DIRECTOR:
Gogi Tatisvili
Kote Dzaparidze

EDITOR:
Merab Ahvlediani
Tengiz Zakarejsvili

MUSIC:
Niazi Diasamidze

PRODUCER:
Levan Zakarejsvili

CAST:
Georgij Masharasvili
Eka Nizaradze
Georgij Mgeladze
Georgij Nakasidze
Berta Hapava

PRODUCTION:
L. Zakara Studio, Tbilisi

PROVIDED BY:
L. Zakara Studio, Tbilisi
Tel.: 00995 - 32 / 22 09 30
e-mail: lzakara@yahoo.com

The title is something like a cry of woe. Director Levan Zakarejsvili depicts life in Tbilisi as dominated by poverty, chaos, and violence. The plot unfolds on two narrative planes by means of the film-within-a-film device. David, a no longer youthful filmmaker, is looking for somebody to repair his camera – and is hoping to find more besides: a story. His girlfriend Salome teaches at the conservatory and earns extra cash in the evenings by playing piano in a restaurant. In the capital of the Georgian Republic, people get by as best they can, relying on help and mutual favours from friends and acquaintances. Almost incidentally, a picture unfolds of everyday life in the city. Tbilisi is a place where people have stones where their hearts should be, says David’s friend Nogar as they drink vodka together in a cafe. Going to the market one day, the filmmaker comes across his former professor, now trading from a tiny stall. He’s found a new use for his scholarly works – he passes them on as wrapping paper to the woman who sells nuts next to him. Elsewhere in the film we hear that Georgia is a country where professors become dealers and shopkeepers ministers. Now filmmaker David has his plot: His black-and-white film shows a disintegrating society whose citizens are reduced to a ruthless struggle for survival. The brutal reality is hammered into him after he indignantly turns down a proposal made to him by dubious Russian agents, and so there is more shade than light in this moving record of a disillusioned generation.

LEVAN ZAKAREJSVILI
Born on 17.4.1953 in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Levan Zakarejsvili studied geology in Tbilisi, before he graduated, in 1985, from the master classes of Film Writers and Directors in Moscow. His first feature film THEY was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 1992. His second feature film TBILISI-TBILISI was shown at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2005 and succesfully at several international film festivals.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTION):
1991 They (2nd version 1993)
2005 Tbilisi-Tbilisi / Tbilisi-Tbilisi