Georgian Cinema Now: Taming the Garden (2021)

Georgian cinema is experiencing a remarkable renaissance. Over the past fifteen years, filmmakers from Georgia have earned acclaim at major international festivals, including the Berlinale, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, and IDFA (Amsterdam). This creative flourishing, however, exists in stark contrast to the increasingly repressive political environment in Georgia since the ascent of an authoritarian government in 2024. Independent filmmakers now face severe threats to their freedom of expression and the basic conditions necessary for financing, producing, and exhibiting films domestically, including those perceived as critical of the government. Georgian Cinema Now will be presented in installments over the course of the coming year, offering an unprecedented opportunity to experience the power, artistry, and urgency of contemporary Georgian filmmaking at a time when it is most at risk. Through screenings, conversations, scholarship, and international collaboration, the project will deepen public understanding of Georgia’s cultural landscape and highlight the essential role of independent artists in societies where democratic freedoms are threatened. A delegation of ten filmmakers and experts will visit the San Francisco Bay Area for ten days in late September, creating a festival-like launch for this ongoing retrospective. —Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) Copresenters: Documentary Association Georgia, Tbilisi Georgian Film Institute, Tbilisi Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley Department of Art & Art History, Film & Media Studies, Documentary Film & Video, Stanford Global Studies, and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University Tuesday, September 22 at 7:30 PM Venue: McMurtry Building, Oshman Hall In Conversation: Salomé Jashi Taming the Garden Salomé Jashi (Georgia/Switzerland/Germany, 2021) “[An] extraordinary, savagely poetic film.” —Wendy Ide, Observer (Motviniereba). With astonishing cinematic style, Taming the Garden tracks the surreal uprooting of ancient trees from their Georgian locales. With each removal, tensions flare between workers and villagers. Some see financial incentives—new roads, handsome fees—while others angrily mourn the loss of what was assumed to be an immovable monolith of their town’s collective history and memory. With a steady and shrewdly observant eye, Salomé Jashi documents a single man’s power over Earth’s natural gardens: how majestic living artifacts of a country’s identity can so effortlessly become uprooted by individuals with no connection to the nature they claim as their own. —Big World Pictures Written by Jashi. Photographed by Jashi, Goga Devdariani. (91 mins, In Georgian with English subtitles, Color, DCP, From Big World Pictures) BAMPFA info: Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1 Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720 For complete information about the screenings and the delegation of ten Georgian independent filmmakers and experts visiting the Bay Area between September 22-October 2, 2026, please see: https://bampfa.org/program/georgian-cinema-now-part-1 For detailed information related to the symposium: Georgian Cinema Now Symposium – Activism in Authoritarian Times: The Republic of Georgia as a Case Study Saturday, September 26 from 11:30 AM – 5 PM 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94720 Free admission Please see: https://bampfa.org/event/georgian-cinema-now-symposium Event Image: Salomé Jashi: Taming the Garden, 2021