Nino Dzandzava

Research Fellow

Contact:         

nino.dzandzava.1[at]uni-potsdam.de

Vita

Nino Dzandzava is a researcher specialising in film and early photography as well as an artist. Her scholarly interests focus on the history of Georgian cinema and photography, as well as Georgia’s colonial visual cultural legacy. After acquiring both theoretical and practical knowledge in film conservation at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation in Rochester, New York, she has centred her research on primary source materials, including paper collections, film, video, printed media, and photographs. Nino has undertaken several film preservation and publication projects and is the author and editor of several books. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Potsdam, with a thesis focusing on the legacy of Mikheil Chiaureli. Her mixed-media works are rooted in research and often combine personal experiences with cultural and political contexts and issues of memory politics.

Project: Mikheil Chiaureli: A Critical Examination through the Lens of Colonialism and National Cinemas

Nino Dzandzava’s project at EUTIM critically examines the career of Mikheil Chiaureli—one of Soviet cinema’s most prominent yet understudied directors—through the dual lens of colonial theory and national cinema discourse. By situating Chiaureli’s oeuvre within the broader ideological framework of Stalinist cultural politics and the Soviet imperial system, this study interrogates how his Georgian identity aligned with central Soviet authority. Through comprehensive archival research and film-by-film analysis, it explores how Chiaureli’s artistic trajectory—from avant-garde beginnings to Stalinist propaganda, political exile, and late-career rehabilitation—mirrored and contested the power structures of the USSR.

Drawing from decolonial theory, the dissertation challenges the Russocentric framing of Soviet cinema and seeks to reexamine Chiaureli’s contribution to Georgian cultural history. The research covers the negotiation of identity, myth-making, and political loyalty across Chiaureli’s body of work, highlighting the dynamics between personal artistry and state-sponsored aesthetics. By incorporating unpublished archival materials and examining Chiaureli’s legacy in Soviet and Georgian contexts, the project redefines his place in Soviet film history and also contributes to the decolonial turn in post-Soviet cultural scholarship.