No Time to Sleep: Meet the Mind behind the New Creative Media

Olga Babluani - Film Director, screenwriter, OK Magazine Georgia editor, author and host of popular TV show ‘No Time to Sleep’ - is also the founder of BiO International, which creates and launches media projects and provides media consultancy. GEORGIA TODAY met with Olga to talk about her recent and upcoming projects.

Tell us about BIO International

In BiO International, we’re creating media projects and offering media consultancy. We aim to deliver focused, precise and targeted informational strategies that are well-organized and adapted to demand - something that is a crucial social component in today’s realm. My background is in cinema, mostly reflecting fictionalized reality on screen, authors can tell a story depending on their own tastes and choices, whereas what I’m doing differs from cinema, as the information provided to society needs to be true and trustworthy. Cinema helps me to be more creative. In fact, the creative part of the process means much more to me. I’m the creator, producer, author and presenter of the No Time to Sleep TV show and for me that’s like working on a movie - I’m happy when I’m creating. As the saying goes, “as long as the tree has apples every year, life goes on,” and I’m like that, too.

Since you’re very actively involved in media, what do you think is most needed today in the sphere?

I think that Georgian media, like other spheres, needs educated, healthy individuals working in the field who, with the high standards of professional ethics, take the responsibility to offer a product to the audience of four million viewers. It doesn’t matter if it’s for entertainment or education, it is something needed for their development and needed for the country, especially considering the 25 years of our independence.

Today, 85 percent of the audience gets information from television, and I think that viewers must be protected. This is reality. Their moral, intellectual, psychological and physical existence should not be threatened. This, of course, is a matter for time and is a process that is regulated together with development.

What is the message you want to deliver through the No Time to Sleep TV show?

Media has a drastic influence on society’s way of thinking, but does not form it - these are two different things.

The show is of a cultural and educational format, and I believe it’s much needed today. There’s an enormous demand for novelty in our society. Our aim was to create a media platform where new themes could be discussed freely through inviting new people, new faces. The show is entirely produced by my company BiO International and we have some excellent partners, who are themselves taking part in our country’s development. UNDP, Georgian Post, Silknet, as well as TBC. From September, the program will broadcast on Imedi TV, but it will stay on Maestro till the end of this TV season, aired as usual at 20:30 every Saturday and 13:00 on Sundays.

With such a busy schedule, how do you overcome challenges?

Challenges are an integral part of our lives, “the longest road is the road to ourselves, and while we walk on it, we have to pave the way on our own”. Nothing is easy, even sleeping can be difficult sometimes[…]It’s important to have an axis of moral values that you can relate and stick to, and it will help you not to feel weak and powerless. Family, children, your work - it’s all interrelated, and your personal life is what you dedicate your soul to.

By Nino Gugunishvili

Photo: Olga Babluani