Kartuli Filmi
In March 2016, I started a personal diptych about Kartuli Filmi, the Georgian Film Studios, once one of the largest film studios in the Soviet Union.
Robert of Georgian Film
After the USSR fell, the studio went through hard times, and many of its treasures are gone. What could be saved was saved by a few heroes. This diptych portrays two of them: Robert Durakyan and Merab Kokochashvili.
Robert is the studio’s oldest sound engineer. Since his first day at Kartuli Filmi in 1957, he has recorded sound for more than 600 feature films, documentaries and animations. Today, with little film production left at the studio, he keeps its unique archive of Georgian film.
This shoot was part of my personal project, and it had a second job: one of the photos became the poster for the Georgian director Khatuna Khundadze’s latest documentary. Robert is its main character (it is the second documentary about him and his work at the studios).
Set design: Andrei Kovalev, Tatiana Almond · Behind-the-scenes video: Thomas Burns · Special thanks to the staff of the Georgian Film Studios, Khatuna Khundadze and Robert
Batoni Merab of Georgian Film
Wise, sharp and endlessly energetic, Batoni Merab, as he is respectfully called, is 84. For 29 years he ran the Georgia Telefilm studios, the country’s most productive ground for documentary and feature film.
He has shot 12 films and helped make dozens more. Now he puts his energy into growing the Georgian film industry and training its next generation of filmmakers.
“Before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Georgian film industry produced up to 100 films a year. We had more than a hundred cinemas. There were 10 on Rustaveli Avenue alone.”
A test shot, featuring the American director Thomas Burns, and a quick sketch drawn over it to plan the scene.
Today those numbers are a distant dream, and the Georgian film industry is a fraction of the empire it once was. But Batoni Merab stays optimistic. He founded the Young Directors Union, a non-governmental organisation where his students develop their films. Among other things, he is building a film digitising lab to preserve and monetise an archive of documentary and feature films that spans more than 100 years of Georgian filmmaking.
Set designer: Andrei Kovalev · Lighting: Thomas Burns · Assistants: Tata Melnik, Natalia Eremina · Special thanks to the staff of the Georgian Film Studios, Khatuna Khundadze and Batoni Merab Kokochashvili himself