Tbilisi screening to bring 1920s Georgian film and electronic music together
'Amok' was the first Georgian film based on a work by foreign author and was first screened in 1928. Photo: Georgian National Film Centre.
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An early Georgian silent film Amok, reels of which were recently returned to the country from Russian state archives, will be screened in Tbilisi on Friday on a backdrop of electronic music by contemporary artists, as part of European Heritage Days celebrations.
The 1927 feature from Kote Marjanishvili, a founder and major figure of the country's theatre scene, will be shown to the public in Ilia's Garden park on Aghmashenebeli Avenue, on the backdrop of sounds by composer Vazha Marr performed by artist Gio Kuchukhidze.
I am thrilled to announce that we’ve been honored to work on the sound of Kote Marjanishvili’s silent movie, titled [Amok]," Marr said in a post to his social media followers ahead of the event.
Based on a 1922-published novella by Stefan Zweig, Amok was the first Georgian film on a work by foreign author and featured Nato Vachnadze, one of the most popular actors of the country's cinema scene.
See a teaser for the screening of the film in Tbilisi below:
The 72-minute, black-and-white film also starred other Georgian actors and was first screened in 1928, bringing to the screen Zweig's script that incorporates elements of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.
In his novella, Zweig created a character of a physician arriving in a British colony from Europe to later encounter an English woman seeking abortion. The protagonist's obsession with the woman follows in the storyline, with tragic consequences for everyone.
Preserved in vaults of Russia's state Gosfilmofond archives for decades, the reels for Marjanishvili's film were returned to Georgia as part of a recent initiative on bringing back Soviet-era works by Georgian directors to the country.
Since its return to national archives the film has been digitised into a high-resolution format.
The screening of Amok will be hosted at 8pm in the park located at 73, Agmashenebeli Avenue as part of cultural events in frame of the European Heritage Days. The programme is marked in over 40 states and has been organised since 1985.