British Georgian Society

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The Dash Café with the British Georgian Society present:

a special screening of

''Lucky Village''

Wednesday 3rd July 2013, 7:30pm | FREE 

Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA 

The Dash Café is pleased to present this special event in partnership with the British Georgian Society: a rare screening of the fascinating 1993 Georgian film “Lucky Village”, directed by Giorgi Levashov-Tumanishvili and starring Tim Pigott-Smith, Zurab Kipshidze and Shota Kristeshasvili.

The ward of the Narcotics Unit of the Tbilisi mental hospital, Georgia, is an unexpected safe haven from the civil war which rages beyond the bars and walls of the hospital. A new patient is admitted - a middle-aged alcoholic. As a voluntary inmate of ’Lucky Village’ he pieces together the fragments of his childhood in the streets of Stalin's Georgia. Into this world arrives Michael (Tim Pigott-Smith), a British diplomat, with the DTs.

“Lucky Village” began filming in Georgia in May 1991 and was completed in extraordinary conditions of counter-revolution and imperial collapse, military take-over and civil war.

The screening will be followed by a short discussion and Q&A with Dash Artistic Director Tim Supple and "Lucky Village" Associate Producer Marina Tsitsishvili.

The Café will also feature a set from the The Maspindzeli Choir singing songs from the ancient polyphonic tradition of Georgia.

Bare, beautiful and once heard never forgotten— Time Out, 25 May 2011. 

No advance booking required, you can just turn up on the night; BUT to let us know you're coming and go on the guest list, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

On Friday June 21st from 2pm - 6.30pm, there will be a special BGS Georgian event in the Old Library, Pembroke College Cambridge . The first half of the afternoon will be a high level political seminar entitled Georgia - Political Challenges and Constitutional Solutions with a keynote address by the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament Speaker David Usupashvili, one of the leading and most influential politicians in Georgia today. Mr Usupashvhili will then join a panel discussion with Sir Tony Brenton (UK Ambassador to Russia 2004-2008), Judith Gough (UK Ambassador to Georgia 2010 - 2013), David Howarth (MP for Cambridge 2005-2010) and Roy Reeve (former head of OSCE mission in Tbilisi 2004 - 2007). The event will be chaired by Sir Richard Dearlove, Master of Pembroke College Cambridge. This is a unique opportunity to understand how Georgia is developing a few months after the unexpected election victory for Georgia's Dream Coalition and before the presidential elections in October. 

The second session of the afternoon will focus on Georgian literature in two contrasting important historical eras - Queen Tamar and the twenty years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Professor Charles Melville (Professor of Persian History, Fellow of Pembroke College) and Dr Firuza Melville (Academic Associate, Head of Shahnama Centre, Pembroke College) will talk about Visramiani - the Georgian Perception of a Persian Love Story. Followed by Professor Donald Rayfield (Author, Historian and Professor of Russian and Georgian, Queen Mary, University of London) on A Decade of Chaos and a Decade of Change - as Georgian Writers have Perceived them. The session will be introduced and chaired by Cambridge Historian Dr Hubertus Jahn (Fellow of Clare College Cambridge, lecturer in Russian and East European history). The afternoon will end with a reception with Georgian wine and songs from Chela, the Cambridge Georgian choir. 

This event has been convened by Firuza Melville of Pembroke College and Jason Osborn and Craig Oliphant of British Georgian Society. Admission is free but to reserve a place please register by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Download pdf flyer How to get to Pembroke see here 

This keynote address by Speaker David Usupashvili, Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, on Friday June 21st 2013, 2.00pm, in the Old Library, Pembroke College Cambridge, is the opening event at the BGS inaugural Georgian day at Pembroke. Joining Mr Usupashvili for a panel discussion will be Sir Tony Brenton (UK Ambassador to Russia 2004-2008), Judith Gough (UK Ambassador to Georgia 2010 - 2013), David Howarth (MP for Cambridge 2005-2010) and Roy Reeve (former head of OSCE mission in Tbilisi 2004 - 2007). The event will be chaired by Sir Richard Dearlove, Master of Pembroke College Cambridge. 

This promises to be a fascinating occasion just 4 months before the next Georgian Presidential election and 8 months since the election of the Georgian Dream coalition, and the unpredicted democratic change in Georgian politics.  

Admission is free but to register for the event please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Download pdf flyer How to get to Pembroke see here

BGS is delighted to be holding a talk by the British Ambassador to Tbilisi on Monday 20th May 2013, at 6.30pm, in the UCL Bedford Way building. 

Ambassador David Moran arrived as Charge d'Affaires to Georgia in January 2013. His previous Ambassadorial appointments have included Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as well as postings to Nairobi, Moscow and Paris.  

The talk will take place in Room 305 on the third floor of the UCL Building, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0DS, which is on the South-West corner of Tavistock Square.

Georgian wine will be served after the talk. 

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BGS is pleased to host the London book launch of Anthea Nicholson’s debut novel ‘BGS is pleased to host the book launch of Anthea Nicholson’s debut novel ‘The Banner of the Passing Clouds’ on Thursday, April 25 at 7.00pm, at the Georgian Embassy, 4 Russell Gardens, London, W14 8EZ, just two weeks after its official publication by Granta. 

The publisher, Philip Gwyn Jones, will give a short introduction, after which Anthea Nicholson will be reading extracts from her book. Good home-made Georgian wine and Georgian snacks will be provided afterwards. 

Anthea Nicholson is a writer and visual artist who lives between England and Tbilisi in Georgia.  

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Anthea Nicholson’s The Banner of the Passing Clouds gives an extraordinary insight into living under communism in Georgia before independence and vividly describes life in Tbilisi. Its narrator, who is born on the day Stalin dies, is given Stalin's name by hospital nurses – Iosif Dzhugashvili. When Iosif learns of his strange link to the 'man of steel', he becomes convinced that Stalin has found a new dwelling place within his chest, a burden he both welcomes and fears.  In Iosif, Nicholson has created a unique and compelling narrator: a victim of the regime, which dictates all aspects of his and his family's life, who is also complicit in its ideology and practises. As an unquestioning citizen of communism, he is disconcertingly meddlesome, yet he remains a curiously pathetic and moving figure. It is only when Iosif unwittingly destroys his family's happiness that some kind of redemption for him is possible.

‘The Banner of the Passing Clouds is marked by an almost uncanny insight into its historical time and place. All is rendered with poignant clarity. There is a deep and hard-won compassion at work in this book, a compassion that is a kind of wisdom’ Anne Michaels, author, Fugitive Pieces

‘Nicholson is a writer of extraordinary lyrical gifts. The Banner of the Passing Clouds is gripping and profoundly moving’ Gerard Woodward

‘A tale that suggests how naked we are when the mighty ideologies around us fall... manages to be at once epic and claustrophobic, and, above all, entrancing’ Samantha Harvey, author, Wilderness

BGS is delighted to welcome Professor Rudi Matthee from the University of Delaware for our first annual BGS Rustaveli Lecture at the Royal Asiatic Society, 14 St Stephenson Way, NW1 2HD, at 7pm.

Free admission for members of BGS or RAS. Non members will be charged £5 (including Georgian wine and canapes). This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

One of the most established Georgian restaurants in London, Mimino off High St Kensington, will sponsor food. 

In the course of the sixteenth century the rulers of Safavid Iran incorporated much of the southern Caucasus, including the lowlands of Georgia, into their realm. This conquest had momentous repercussions for Georgia as well as for Iran. 

Read more: Safavid Iran and Georgia: How the Dominated Came to Dominate 12 March 2013

At 4pm on Tuesday 26th February there will be a special visit to the British Library for members of the British Georgian Society meeting at the BL main entrance. Those attending will be welcomed by Janet Zmroczek, Head of European Studies, and then given an exclusive guided tour of the British Library. This will be followed by a presentation from the Georgian curator Anna Chelidze, and an opportunity to explore the BL Georgian collection. The presentation will focus on: the star items of the Georgian collection - highlights from which include medieval manuscripts, early printed books and rare newspapers published by émigrés after the establishment of Soviet power; important avant-garde journals from the 1920s; and early gramophone recordings made in Tbilisi 1901-1914. The visit will last approximately two and a half hours and refreshments will be available from the British Library cafe. 

There are only 30 places available for this event and places will be given on a first come first served basis to members emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Will There be a Theatre Up There? (Netavi iq Teatri aris?!) 2011. 55min. Georgian with English subtitles. 

Nana Janelidze's award winning documentary has one of the most popular Georgian actors Kakhi Kavsadze, as the main character of the film. But it is not just about an actor, and chronicles the life ordeals of a big family - the Kavsadzes, a family of great folk singers - which reflects the lives of millions who lived in the former USSR.

Born 1955 in Tbilisi, Nana Janelidze graduated from the Georgian State Theatric and Cinema Institute (Master class of Tengiz Abuladze) in 1981. Subsequently worked with Abuladze as script writer and music-designer on the film Repentance. She was awarded the Russian Cinema Academy Prize for the script of the film Nika (which was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes XXXX International Film Festival). She was also awarded the State Prize of Georgia and Jakob Gogebashvili pedagogical prize for her film Lullaby.

2010 The Knights of Georgian Chant / Galobis Raindebi (doc.), 2005 Cristmas Gift / Sashobao Sachukari (short), 2003 Dreams of the Dry Bridge / Mshrali Khidis Sizmrebi (short), 2002 One Drop of Georgia / Erti Tsveti Sakartvelo (doc.), 1998 Lullaby / Iavnana, 1985 The Family / Ojakhi (short), 1978 A Big Boy and a Little Boy /Didi bichi da patara bichi (short)

Tuesday 12th February 2013, at 7pm, Georgian Embassy, 4 Russell Gardens, London W14 8EZ.

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The next BGS film screening at the Georgian Embassy, 4 Russell Gardens, W14 8EZ, is on Wednesday 23rd January, 6.45pm for 7pm start.  Wanted: Marjory and Oliver directed by Giorgi Levashov-Tumanishvili is a British and Georgian co-production made in 1989 (95 minutes).  The film was first screened on Channel 4 and is in Georgian (with English subtitles) and English. Actress Alex Kingston visits Georgia searching for Marjory and Oliver Wardrop, who at the turn of the 20th century became heroes of Georgia. For a fuller description of the Wardrops please see the BGCC website.

As the BGS has historic links with the Wardrops, and as we have just celebrated 100 years since the first publication of ‘The Knight in the Panther Skin’ in the UK (1912), this seems a particularly appropriate screening. 

We are very pleased that director Giorgi Levashov-Tumanishvili will be present to introduce the film and the distinguished Channel 4 Commissioning Editor and producer David Rose will also be present. As one of the most influential film producers in British Television and having collaborated with Levashov-Tumanishvili on various projects, Rose will recall filming in Georgia in the 1990s. This was the first project that they collaborated on and was followed by a feature film Lucky Village (1993). 

They are also in the process of finishing another film Ready to Live which we hope to show in the next BGS film festival in September 2013.