Melodies of the Verijsky Quarter

The son of director Nikolai Shengelaya, Giorgi, along with his brother Eldar, were part of the sixties generation of Soviet filmmakers. Shengalaya graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography in 1963, and made his debut in 1967 with He Did Not Want To Kill, focusing, like many of his films, on Georgian subjects and settings. His 1969 film, Pirosmani, could be considered his greatest and most representative film, concerned as it is with ordinary life and extraordinary art, independence and belonging— conditions that mirrored Shengalaya’s perception of life in the Soviet republics. —Seagull Films