Georgian writer and director Rusudan Glurjidze drew lots of attention with her first film about a civil war that brings no peace, House of Others, which took home the Gran Prix in both Karlovy Vary’s The East of the West competition and at the Eurasia International Film Festival in 2016, going on to become Georgia’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. Now her second feature The Antique has been selected as Georgia’s bid for Best International Feature at the upcoming Oscars. A whimsical comedy that packs a big punch in its final scenes, which depict the mass deportation of Georgians from Putin’s Russia, the film has an extraordinary festival release story that is described by the director herself in this TFV interview. It was recorded at the Istanbul Crime & Punishment Film Festival, one of several festivals where the film has been screened since its troubled Venice premiere.
The Film Verdict: The Antique is set in St. Petersburg and features a mixed cast of Russian and Georgian actors, notably the late Sergey Dreyden who starred in Sokurov’s Russian Ark. How did you select them and work with them?
RUSUDAN GLURJIDZE: Sergey Dreyden was one of the great representatives of the Russian acting school, and it was wonderful to have had a chance to work together. He was famous in film and theater and very selective about the roles he played. He was not just an actor, he was a symbol of Russian history, and he taught me so much.
Medea, the female lead, is played by Georgian actress Salome Demuria, a very close friend of mine who was in my first film. I find her one of the most interesting and acclaimed actors in Georgia. She has enormous intuition. And she was a European Shooting Star this year in Berlin.
TFV: Talk about the production team who made The Antique and the need for a Russian coproducer.
GLURJIDZE: The film is a coproduction between Georgia, Switzerland, Germany and Finland which included some very brave people who are still fighting for the film. The Finnish company was White Point and we were delighted to do the sound in Germany with Basis in post-production.
The Russians became obligatory for shooting in Russia. Nadezhda Gorshkova, a Russian-Cypriot producer on my first film, came in with her company Viva Films and she brought a Croatian producer, Sergej Stanojkovski and his company Avvantura. I think Gorshkova is a victim of pressure… In any case, the Russian companies, who were minority coproducers, started sending scary letters to festivals around the world, urging them to cancel invitations to The Antique. There was something very big and powerful behind all this.
TFV: Had the Russian-based coproducers read the screenplay? Didn’t they realize the film had a strong political dimension critical of Vladimir Putin’s attitude towards Georgia?
GLURJIDZE: Yes, of course they read it… Some time before the Russia-Ukraine war, when Russia was still a member of the Eurimages coproduction fund, they contacted Eurimages demanding the final deportation scenes be removed.
TFV: What happened then?
GLURJIDZE: The world premiere was to be held in the Giornate degli Autori [an autonomous section] during the Venice Film Festival. After the Russians sent many letters warning them not to screen the film, which also reached the authorities, a Venice judge forced the Giornate to cancel the first screening early in the festival. It was a huge scandal. There were 25 actors and crew members present and instead of walking the red carpet, they were called into emergency press conferences to talk about what had happened. Then, after the vocal support of the Giornate heads Giorgio Gosetti, Francesco Martinotti and Gaia Furrer and the Italian Directors’ Association, the court reversed his ruling and allowed the film to be screened. But by then it was the very end of the festival and many journalists had gone home or were wrapping up.
TFV: That was quite a blow to the film’s promotion.
GLURJIDZE: It damaged the film a lot, and not all festivals are as brave as the Giornate degli Autori. We are waiting for justice… But I learned a lot about censorship and many liars. The coproducers are with me, along with our world sales agent Marie Pierre Macia, and we are fighting together in the courts with our legal team. The film will soon be coming out in Georgia while it’s on hold in Finland and Germany. It’s like the old Soviet Union: the Russians are back to putting uncomfortable films “on the shelf”, only now they’re using the European legal system for censorship.
