Wolf Kino Berlin: Conscience of Georgian Cinema
The program “Prisoners of Conscience + A Friend in Prison, Me Next to the Prison” will be shown Saturday the 14th at 13.00, more Georgian films follow, check the website https://wolfberlin.org/de.
From February 14 to 15, in cooperation with the Georgian Film Institute—a non-governmental initiative supporting independent Georgian filmmakers—we (Wolf Kino) will be showing a joint program of selected Georgian films from recent years for the second time.
What is happening cinematically in a country that has experienced a radical regression toward authoritarianism within just a few years? Georgia—a country with a deep-rooted cinema tradition that has produced poetic, rebellious images even under censorship—is currently undergoing a political and cultural upheaval. After years of democratic development and European orientation, the country is once again being subordinated to Russia against the will of its population: ruled and monopolized by an oligarch modeled on Putin. In response to increasing censorship, Georgian filmmakers have taken a united stand against the state. They are boycotting state funding structures so as not to become instruments of propaganda, and refusing to recognize a cinema that compromises with oppression. By 2023, over 450 filmmakers had already signed up to this boycott.
And yet Georgian cinema lives on. Despite a lack of financial structures, films continue to be made – driven by independence, solidarity, and resistance. Conscience of Georgian Cinema, which is also the institute’s motto at the EFM of the Berlinale 2026, brings together current films that reflect Georgia’s political and social processes through cinema. The short film program Prisoners of Conscience combines works by Salomé Jashi, Nutsa Salomé Alexi, Keti Machavariani, Elene Naveriani, and others about politically imprisoned people in Georgia. The films counter the state’s criminalization of pro-European protests with a cinematic counter-public sphere – as an act of witness and truth. On Another Stage by Teo Jorbenadze portrays the Georgian opera singer and world star Paata Burchuladze and his journey from the big stage to protest. The film was shot before his arrest in October 2025. He now faces up to nine years in prison.
Alexandre Koberidze’s epic experimental road movie Dry Leaf is about a father’s search for his missing daughter. The director’s father plays the lead role, and the score was composed by his brother. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival and received a Special Mention.
The series is complemented by two new documentaries: Ketevan Vashagishvili’s 9-Month Contract, a haunting exploration of motherhood and surrogacy under precarious social conditions, and Kote Kaladze’s Nobody in Sight, a sensitive portrait of a young man hoping for a different life as part of addiction therapy.
Current feature films are also represented, including Luka Beradze’s social satire Congratulations Once Again, a fairy-tale-like short film about a New Year’s celebration that gets out of hand. The program is complemented by other works with an original, personal cinematic language, including Anka Gujabidze’s TemoRe, a humorous black-and-white photo adventure, and Dea Cholokava’s What Does the Mud Whisper, a sensitive cinematic portrait of the perceptual world of a six-year-old girl. The series concludes with Tato Kotetishvili’s docu-fiction film Holy Electricity, which won a Golden Leopard at Locarno and accompanies a teenager and his uncle on an odyssey through Tbilisi, addressing themes such as grief and masculinity with wit and profundity.
All screenings will be introduced by Mukhran Makharadze’s short animated film Saturday Cleaning, and after the screenings, the filmmakers in attendance will present their films and engage in conversation with the audience.
Accompanying the film series, 8000 Vintages will be presenting Georgian wines in our bar!
The film series was co-curated by Nana Ekvtimishvili (Georgian Film Institute) and Eva Buchmann (Wolf Kino).
The film program is presented in two parts: Prisoners of Conscience (Georgia 2025, 62 min) is a collection of eleven short films that brings together leading voices in Georgian documentary filmmaking, such as Salomé Jashi, Anna Dziapshipa, Tiku Kobiashvili, and others. Here, individual film portraits capture the political prisoners, the so-called “სინდისის პატიმრები/Sindisis Patimrebi” (English: prisoners of conscience), and their dramatic fate.
A Friend in Prison, Me Next to the Prison by Mari Gulbiani (Georgia 2025, 24 min) tells the story of Dato, whose friend is arrested at a demonstration and sentenced to 10 days in prison, whereupon Dato goes to Zahesi Prison and begins a solo protest. Soon his sister Salomé joins him. Standing side by side in the cold, their silent determination becomes a powerful symbol of friendship, freedom, and courageous commitment to the truth.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Keti Machavariani and Salomé Nutsa Alexi.
directors: Keti Machavariani, Anna Dziapshipa, Salomé Jashi, Sandro Katamashvili, Tiku Kobiashvili, Levan Shubashvili, George Varsimashvili, Elene Naveriani, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Kote Chlaidze, Salomé Nutsa Alexi, Mari Gulbiani
