Tengiz Abuladze

Abuladze, Tengiz Evgen’evich 

Born Jan. 31, 1924, in Kutaisi. Film director. People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1966). Abuladze studied at the Tbilisi Theatrical Institute and graduated from the directors’ faculty of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in 1953 (the studio of S. I. Iutkevich). His first feature film was Lurdzha Magdany (1956), which tells with deep sympathy of the hard life of the poor widow Magdany and her children in prerevolutionary Georgia. His next two films, the lyrical drama Someone Else’s Children (1959) and the comedy I, Grandmother, lliko, and Illarion (1963, based on a novella by N. Dumbadze), were devoted to contemporary subjects. Abuladze’s films were awarded prizes at international film festivals in 1956 and 1958. In 1969 he made the film Entreaty, based on themes from the works of Vazha Pshavela. He has been awarded the Badge of Honor.