Biography

His graduation work was a short documentary film about the conductor Dmitry Arakishvili.

He was a Soviet, Georgian film director and teacher who graduated from the railway technical school, then the Tbilisi Theater Institute ( 1943 - 1946 ), where his teachers were G. A. Tovstonogov and D. A. Aleksidze.

In the last years of his life he did not make films.

In 1955 , together with Rezo Chkheidze, they filmed the film " Lurja Magdana " based on the story of Ekaterina Gabashvili . The film tells about a donkey, which was left for dead by a rich and cruel owner and the children of a poor widow came out. For the film, the director changed the end of the story: if in the story, after the rich man claims the donkey, the judge makes a fair decision in favor of the widow, then in the film, the bribed judge awards the donkey to the rich man. The director explained that he needed to show a drama, not a Christmas story. In 1956, the film was awarded a Special Mention in the Short Film Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.as "Best Film with a Fictional Plot", becoming the first Soviet film in a long time to be recognized at a major Western film festival.

In 1967 he finished the film " Prayer " based on the works of Vazha-Pshavela (poems "Aluda Ketelauri" and "Guest and Host"). In it, he combined plots about the blood feud of the Khevsurs and Kistins , a parable about the clash of Good (Virgin) and Evil , personified by the spirit Macil , and philosophical interludes. The director considered "Prayer" to be his main creation, summarizing on a philosophical level the content of the two subsequent films of the trilogy - "The Tree of Desire" and "Repentance". "Prayer" was almost not shown in cinemas in the USSR, but in 1973 it received the Grand Prix of the IFF author's film in San Remo ( Italy ).