The Cinema of Georgia's First Independence Period: Between Republican and European

Abstract

This article discusses films made during Georgia’s first period of independence (1918–21), focusing on the newsreel series known as the Independence Chronicles (1918–20) by Germane Gogiditze. Imperatives around state consolidation and internationalism are clearly, although sometimes implicitly, visible in that series. The same disputes that define discussions of Georgia and of the post-Soviet world today—multiethnic nationalism, European outlooks, and so on—were very much part of the debates during this earlier period and are arguably being publically negotiated for the first time in this independently produced series of documentaries.