Film Screening: 'Will There Be a Theatre Up There?!'

This year, the Davis Center's Program on Georgian Studies has launched a new initiative called Artist in Residence. A Georgian artist is invited to spend three weeks at the center. Our first visitor is Nana Janelidze, one of Georgia's best-known film directors and former director of the Georgian Film Center. Ms. Janelidze will be bringing three films, two of which she directed, to show at the Davis Center on March 27, March 28, and April 2. After the films, Ms. Janelidze will be available to talk about them, the Georgian film industry, and the role of movies in Georgian culture and politics.

The film "Netavi ik teatri aris?" ("Will There Be a Theater Up There?"), written and directed by Ms. Janelidze in 2011, is a dramatized documentary of the Kavsadze family during the Soviet period. It stars acclaimed Georgian actor Kakhi Kavsadze who, based on the experiences of his own family, tells the tragic 20th-century history of Stalinism and its impact on the people of Georgia. Filmed in a railroad-car repair factory and on the stage of Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Theater, it is a marvelous example of dramatic storytelling about one of the most bloody tragedies of the 20th century.