Georgian Cinema Now: Self-Portrait Along the Borderline (2023), It Will Be Better Before (2024)

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

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Tuesday, September 22 at 3:45 PM
Venue: McMurtry Building, Room 115
In Conversation: Anna Dziapshipa and Keto Kipiani

Self-Portrait Along the Borderline 
Anna Dziapshipa (Georgia, 2023)

(Avtoportreti zghvarze). Anna Dziapshipa was born in Tbilisi to an Abkhazian father and a Georgian mother. As a child, her Abkhazian surname was initially associated with her grandfather’s footballing success, but it has since become closely linked to the conflict that has kept the two nations in opposition since 1992. This situation had a profound effect on her childhood and identity, caught in the middle of two warring countries. In Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, the filmmaker returns to the Abkhazian family home built by her grandfather, located in a country that is off-limits to Georgian citizens and still not recognized by Georgia. 
—Alice Riva, Visions du Réel

Written and photographed by Dziapshipa. (50 mins, In Georgian and Russian with English subtitles) 
 

Followed by

It Will Be Better Before
Keto Kipiani (Georgia, 2024)

(Tsarulshi uket ikneba). It Will Be Better Before began as a collaboration between two directors. After five years, one of the directors, Keto Kipiani, re-edited and modified the film, sharing her perspective and feelings throughout the creation process. “The title, with its mixed tenses that collapse time, conveys the confused desperation of a future torn from one’s control . . . a personal story about hanging onto glimmers of meaning but also, implicitly and inevitably, a national one” (Carmen Gray, Senses of Cinema). 

Written by Nicolas Kunisz, Photographed by Kipiani. (26 mins, In Georgian and French with English subtitles, Color, DCP, From the artist)
 

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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

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Event Image: Anna Dziapshipa: Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, 2023