# Pirosmani (Пиросмани)
**Pirosmani** (Georgian: ფიროსმანი) is a 1969 Soviet Georgian feature film directed by Giorgi Shengelaia that portrays the life of the self-taught painter Niko Pirosmanashvili (1862–1918), known as Pirosmani. It was produced by the Tbilisi studio Georgia-film as a biographical drama of 86 minutes and is widely considered one of the most important works of Georgian cinema's 1960s generation.[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Year and studio | 1969, Georgia-film (Grouzia Film), Tbilisi, Soviet Union[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [3](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/4974-pirosmani.html) |
| Director and writers | Giorgi Shengelaia; screenplay by Shengelaia and Erlom Akhvlediani[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) |
| Running time | 86 minutes, color, 35 mm (sources also give 85 and 87 minutes)[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [3](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/4974-pirosmani.html) • [4](https://www.ivc-tokyo.co.jp/titles/ha/a0396.html) |
| Title role | Avtandil Varazi, a painter rather than a professional actor, who also served as the film's art director[5](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437) • [2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/) |
| Principal awards | Golden Hugo (grand prix), Chicago International Film Festival 1974; best biographical film prize, Asolo 1974; British Film Institute prize (Sutherland Trophy)[6](https://ic1.static.km.ru/kino/encyclopedia/pirosmani-1969) • [4](https://www.ivc-tokyo.co.jp/titles/ha/a0396.html) |
| Soviet release | 1971, after completion in 1969[7](https://info.wikireading.ru/155011) |
## Spoilers
### Subject and plot
The film follows Nikoloz (Niko) Pirosmanashvili, a naïve, or self-taught primitive, painter who arrives in Tiflis (Tbilisi) from the village of Mirzaani in the eastern region of Kakheti.[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [8](https://metrograph.com/futures-and-pasts-pirosmani/) He tries a series of trades: he works as a train attendant, opens a small shop, and after the trade fails he begins painting shop fronts, signs, and pictures for the city's taverns and restaurants, exchanging his work for food and drink.[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [9](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/18371/pirosmani)
Two threads of misfortune run through the story. Pirosmani falls unilaterally in love with Margalita, a dancer at a café-chantan (old Tbilisi café-concert venue with music and performers), and the unrequited love compounds his professional failure: contemporary artists do not recognize his work and publish a caricature of him, under his nickname Nikala, in a newspaper.[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) In the film's account of his later life, two passing artists discover his paintings and organize an exhibition, but official critics judge the work ridiculous; Pirosmani gives away his possessions to the poor, sells paintings in the street for the price of a meal, and dies alone, misunderstood except by a small circle of connoisseurs.[3](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/4974-pirosmani.html) The Bulgarian festival notes describe the film as a contemplative portrait in which the painter's isolation, his drinking, and his inability to connect with the singer he worships are hinted at rather than foregrounded.[10](https://2015.siff.bg/index.php%40page%3Dmovies%26id%3D2506.html)
## Production
**Two scripts.** The film that reached the screen was not the first Pirosmani project at the studio. A second script on the same subject, by the writers Giorgi Leonidze, Nodar Tsuleiskiri, and Tengiz Abuladze, had already been prepared and recommended for production by the art board in 1965, with the more experienced Abuladze intended as director. In 1969 Erlom Akhvlediani wrote his script for Shengelaia, and the studio favored the younger, less experienced team.[11](https://www.old.tafu.edu.ge/files/pdf/Disertacia/%E1%83%A5%E1%83%94%E1%83%97%E1%83%94%E1%83%95%E1%83%90%E1%83%9C%20%E1%83%9E%E1%83%90%E1%83%A2%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%90%E1%83%98%E1%83%90_%E1%83%A0%E1%83%94%E1%83%A4%E1%83%94%E1%83%A0%E1%83%90%E1%83%A2%E1%83%98%20%E1%83%A0%E1%83%A3%E1%83%A1%E1%83%A3%E1%83%9A%E1%83%90%E1%83%93.pdf)
**Casting a painter.** Shengelaia cast Avtandil Varazi as Pirosmani. Varazi was himself a painter and was responsible, with Vaso Arabidze, for the film's art design; he was not an actor and did not pursue an acting career afterward, although the role brought him considerable fame in Georgia. His performance is minimalist, built on stillness and certainty rather than dramatic gesture.[2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/) • [5](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437) The supporting cast includes Dodo Abashidze as the Kinto (Tbilisi street trader-fixer figure, part entertainer), Zurab Kapianidze as Ushangi, Teimuraz Beridze, Boris Tsipuria, and Rosalia Mintshin as Margalita.[1](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani) • [12](https://eiga.com/movie/48484/)
The crew drew on a prominent Georgian film family: Giorgi Shengelaia's older brother Eldar Shengelaia directed classic Georgian comedies, their father Nikoloz Shengelaia was a founder of Georgian silent film, and their mother Nato Vachnadze was one of the first Soviet movie stars.[2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/) • [13](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-georgian-films)
## Visual style
Shengelaia built both the structure and the look of the film from Pirosmani's own paintings and aesthetic. He worked with flat tableaux that make spaces appear almost two-dimensional, with long takes and stylized genre scenes, and he experimented with color-control techniques based on the painter's style rather than using the conventional devices of films about artists' lives.[14](https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/cinema/film-screening/5609/) • [5](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437) The photography reflects Pirosmani's compositions and colors, shot in muted tones, mainly ochres, browns, and luminous golds, occasionally highlighted with red.[9](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/18371/pirosmani)
Short episodes are introduced by paintings by Pirosmani, and the protagonist repeatedly walks from one end of the frame to the other, searching for a place where he is welcome. Most scenes are set in restaurants, wine cellars, and feasts, yet the world they show is melancholy and lacks true communication; the film ends with Pirosmani crouched down, rejecting the world that rejected him.[2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/) MoMA's program note, quoting the 1975 New Directors/New Films catalog, describes the result as "a series of impressionistic tableaux from incidents in Pirosmani's life," each taking its style from the painter's own work, with simple lines, pastel colors, and references to French impressionism.[5](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437) A scholarly study of painter-biographies makes the same point from the other direction: despite its biographical line, *Pirosmani* is not a traditional biographical film, because Shengelaia constructs his shots not by directly displaying the paintings but by composing frames as if they were the painter's own.[15](https://arts.sci.am/files/pubs/20250115_105022_am_%D5%93%D5%A1%D6%80%D5%A1%D5%BB%D5%A1%D5%B6%D5%B8%D5%BE%20100.pdf)
## Reception and awards
The film won the Golden Hugo, the grand prix of the Chicago International Film Festival, in 1974 and the prize for best biographical film at the Asolo festival in Italy the same year.[6](https://ic1.static.km.ru/kino/encyclopedia/pirosmani-1969) For the British prize the sources disagree on the year: the Russian encyclopedia entry dates the [British Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-film-institute) award to 1974,[6](https://ic1.static.km.ru/kino/encyclopedia/pirosmani-1969) while the Japanese home-video catalog lists the British Film Association's Sutherland Trophy as 1973.[4](https://www.ivc-tokyo.co.jp/titles/ha/a0396.html)
Critics have placed the film within the Georgian 1960s generation (Samizianelebi), alongside directors such as Tengiz Abuladze, Rezo Chkheidze, and Otar Iosseliani, a period the East European Film Bulletin calls the high point of Georgian cinema and of Georgian cinematography.[2](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/) The British Film Institute includes it in its list of ten great Georgian films, calling it an idiosyncratic, melancholic masterpiece that visually echoes the essence of Pirosmani's vision rather than charting a chronology of events.[13](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-georgian-films) The French critic Michel Capdenac read the film as the account of a search for creative freedom that forces the artist to wander and live on the fringes of society, refusing the straitjacket even of bourgeois admiration.[3](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/4974-pirosmani.html)
## Distribution and restoration
The film entered Soviet distribution in 1971.[7](https://info.wikireading.ru/155011) It reached Japan in a Russian-dubbed theatrical version on 15 September 1978 under the title *Pirosmani*, and was re-released there on 21 November 2015 as *The Wandering Painter Pirosmani* in a digital remaster with the Georgian original soundtrack.[12](https://eiga.com/movie/48484/) MoMA screened it in 2014 within its Discovering Georgian Cinema series, at a screening introduced by Eldar Shengelaia.[5](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437) A restoration carried out at the laboratories of the Georgian National Archives was screened at the Cinémathèque française in March 2025,[16](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/41037.html) and the restored Georgian cinematic heritage, closing with *Pirosmani*, was also presented at the Toute la mémoire du monde festival of archival and restored films in Paris.[17](https://www.archive.gov.ge/index.php/en/news/erovnulma-arkivma-saarkivo-da-restavrirebuli-filmebis-saertashoriso-festivalshi-miigho-monatsileoba-1)
## References
1. [Pirosmani, Georgian National Film Center film description](https://historyfilmhistory.com/en/movies/pirosmani)
2. [Konstanty Kuzma (2011). Giorgi Shengelaia's Pirosmani (1969). East European Film Bulletin.](https://eefb.org/retrospectives/giorgi-shengelaias-pirosmani-1969/)
3. [Pirosmani, Festival des Cinémas d'Asie de Vesoul archive](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/4974-pirosmani.html)
4. [放浪の画家 ピロスマニ, IVC catalog](https://www.ivc-tokyo.co.jp/titles/ha/a0396.html)
5. [Pirosmani. 1969. Directed and cowritten by Giorgi Shengelaia, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/437)
6. [ПИРОСМАНИ (1969), Энциклопедия KM.RU](https://ic1.static.km.ru/kino/encyclopedia/pirosmani-1969)
7. [Пиросмани. Авторская энциклопедия фильмов. Том II](https://info.wikireading.ru/155011)
8. [Futures and Pasts: Pirosmani, Metrograph Journal](https://metrograph.com/futures-and-pasts-pirosmani/)
9. [PIROSMANI, MIFF Film Archive](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/18371/pirosmani)
10. [ПИРОСМАНИ / PIROSMANI, Sofia International Film Festival 2015](https://2015.siff.bg/index.php%40page%3Dmovies%26id%3D2506.html)
11. [Ketevan Pataraia, dissertation, Shota Rustaveli Theater and Film Georgian State University](https://www.old.tafu.edu.ge/files/pdf/Disertacia/%E1%83%A5%E1%83%94%E1%83%97%E1%83%94%E1%83%95%E1%83%90%E1%83%9C%20%E1%83%9E%E1%83%90%E1%83%A2%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%90%E1%83%98%E1%83%90_%E1%83%A0%E1%83%94%E1%83%A4%E1%83%94%E1%83%A0%E1%83%90%E1%83%A2%E1%83%98%20%E1%83%A0%E1%83%A3%E1%83%A1%E1%83%A3%E1%83%9A%E1%83%90%E1%83%93.pdf)
12. [放浪の画家ピロスマニ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/48484/)
13. [10 great Georgian films, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-georgian-films)
14. [Pirosmani, Arsenal Filminstitut](https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/cinema/film-screening/5609/)
15. [Пиросмани in a study of painter-films, Armenian National Academy of Sciences publication](https://arts.sci.am/files/pubs/20250115_105022_am_%D5%93%D5%A1%D6%80%D5%A1%D5%BB%D5%A1%D5%B6%D5%B8%D5%BE%20100.pdf)
16. [Pirosmani ფიროსმანი, La Cinémathèque française](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/41037.html)
17. [The National Archives of Georgia at the International Festival of Archival and Restored Films](https://www.archive.gov.ge/index.php/en/news/erovnulma-arkivma-saarkivo-da-restavrirebuli-filmebis-saertashoriso-festivalshi-miigho-monatsileoba-1)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Biographical films of musicians, artists, and writers › Biographical films about visual and performing artists*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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