Tbilisi’s Unmissable Plunge into the World of Art
Tbilisi is to experience a cultural conglomeration of fashion designers, photographers, and movie directors during the first weekend of May. Out of 52 weekends in a year, the organizers of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi, the CineDoc Tbilisi, and the Kolga Photo Tbilisi week have all decided that the first weekend of May serves as the best time to hold their events.
This overlap of important art festivals will take hold of the Georgian capital as days become dedicated to pure cultural expression. The public will experience difficulties escaping these happenings as posters, public exhibitions, and street alleys echo the messages of the various art festivals. Photographers will run from the Fashion Week to the Kolga Photo Award before they head off to take shots at the CineDoc Festival. A tight time management will be required to attend all desired events, although at some point some time slots will definitely feature fantastic happenings at all three, forcing art lovers to rank them according to priority. This problem will be exacerbated on May 3, as next Thursday marks the opening day of all three events. The Fashion Week will run the shortest amount of time, ending on May 7, whereas CineDoc will end on May 8. Kolga Photo Award decided that one weekend is not enough, as over 20 exhibitions and workshops are to be held across Tbilisi to honor the best photographers.
Taking a look at the program of all three festivals, Tbilisians won’t struggle to dedicate their free time to something they enjoy:
The Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2018, May 3 – May 7
Since 2009, the Fashion Week has been held twice yearly, kicking off both the summer and winter seasons. In May, the week features the trendiest pieces for the upcoming summer, giving the garment industry a taste of what to sell during the next month. Designers come from around the world, but the rising Tbilisi fashion scene easily offers enough top-notch talents to fill the program with Georgian names. Besides national stars such as Datuna and Anouki, other established designers such as Janashia will be showcasing their latest creations.
Running from morning to evening, Tbilisi Circus is the main event location. Yet the best creators chose their own spots to give their works the right background. Among some of the selected locations is Fabrika Tbilisi, forging a hipster environment with expensive upper-class garments. Another noticeable place is King David Residence, which will be transformed from an apartment-hotel complex into a fashion hotspot. The ideas are endless, as symbolized in the wide range of location picks, even including Rooms Hotel, the Georgian State University, and the National Opera.
As usual, the evenings are to be reserved for drinks and music, with Bassiani providing the desired renegade ambiance, disrupting society through techno tunes.
Friday evening’s main designer is Anouki, a Georgian Instagram model married to former Milan football star and current Tbilisi Mayor, Kakha Kaladze. She is inviting guests to admire her works at the Writer’s House, hoping to fuse fashion with literature. Janashia, one of Georgia’s fashion pioneers and the creator of FLABOUR concept stores in Batumi and Tbilisi, will excite the press and fashion critics alike, as her fashion draws a fine line between luxurious and urban, hip lifestyles.
See the full program at: www.mbfashionweektbilisi.com
Kolga Photo Tbilisi 2018, May 3 – May 11
A product of the emergence of shutterbugs across the country, the “Kolga Tbilisi Photo” week gathers the brightest and most renegade minds to organize exhibitions and workshops under the spotlight of photography. Considered as the top photography award of the country, thousands of photos get submitted to the jury for the prestigious Kolga Award, which is handed out to the best shots in numerous categories. From mobile photography to documentaries, each category is endowed with a 1500 USD price incentive, which the winner can reinvest into his/her photography ambitions.
Mats Karlsson was the lucky champion in last year’s category “One Shot,” awarded the prize for his dystopian picture of a man with his son sitting in a restaurant filled with TVs screening various black and white movies, while he is lost in the display of his phone. At the same time, his son awkwardly looks into the distance as he slowly sips on noodle soup.
The festival also hosts various exhibitions dedicated to the best photographers of our century.
On May 3, the day before the official start of the photo week, the Tbilisi History Museum is showcasing the pioneering works of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is considered the inventor of modern street photography. Visitors can gaze for free at his creations in the city of love, which he captured in an impeccably natural way. He was the first photographer allowed in the USSR from the beginning of the Cold War, making his exhibition even more significant for this post-Soviet Republic.
Other exhibitions show Nanuka Zaalishvili’s hunt for Soviet Bus Stops, Vittorio Sella’s 1889 excursion into Georgian Svaneti, or Jan Grarup’s impressive use of the camera in worn-torn countries.
As if this wouldn’t already be enough to lose oneself in photography, workshops will accompany the photo week, allowing those interested to pick the brains of the professionals. Thekla Ehling’s workshop will give hobby shutterbugs the chance to get their shots evaluated.
Full Program at: www.kolga.ge
CinéDOC Tbilisi 2018, May 3 – May 8
As the sole international documentary festival in the Caucasus region, CinéDOC takes place for the sixth time in a row as the event has received annual acclaim for screening uprooting and challenging documentaries since 2013. Movie directors come from across the globe to participate in the festival, hoping to receive the necessary critique to stand out from other moviemakers.
Yet the event isn’t just a simple cinema gathering which allows the audience to watch one movie after another: “The audience attending CinéDOC-Tbilisi screenings has the chance to view a variety of documentary films with a unique directing vision, an original visual style, sympathetic protagonists and powerful stories. The film screenings are followed by Q&A sessions with invited filmmakers, master classes with renowned film professionals, and open sessions with international guests,” the festival promotion highlights.
Looking beyond the national border of Georgia, the program has side sections incorporating German and French creations. Every year, one nation is welcomed as the special guest, supporting their documentary industry. Next weekend, Romania receives this honor as five movies created by Romanian directors will be screened to visitors. The range of documentaries is extremely wide, featuring numerous short films, but also one erotic documentary showing the oddity of falling in love with a sailor who never comes back as he has given his heart to the sea.
Full Program: www.cinedoc-tbilisi.com
No matter which event you chose, all three have a unique message to tell. Tbilisi is being plunged into art next week and it is a moment which shouldn’t be missed.
By Benjamin Music
Main photo: George Georgiou