---

Mirian Khutsishvili

---

Mirian Khutsishvili was born on the 27th of June 1924 in the village of Zemo Khodasheni (near Telavi; the village is now part of the Akhmeta region). His father was a schoolteacher.

In 1943, he served in the Soviet 33rd Mountain Artillery Corps, and fought in the Caucasus and in many other places. After the war, he joined the Faculty of History at the Teachers' Training Institute in Gori, and in 1949 — having finished his studies — he began to work as a scientist for the town's State Museum of History and Ethnography.

Despite having served during the Second World War, Khutsishvili was called up for his military service in the Soviet Army in 1952. Following a short career in the army, he retired in 1959, and became Head of the Atheistic Department of the S. Janashia State Museum. (This department would later become the Department of Religious History.)

Khutsishvili began filming ethnographical documentaries in 1960.

He received his Master's degree in 1972, at the age of 48, and began publishing his scientific works as a leading researcher and guardian of the Film and Video Fund.

In 1984 he received a State Museum Reward for his work, and between 1987 and 1991 he took part in international anthropological documentary film festivals. He also participated in several scientific conferences. More recently, one of Khutsishvili's documentaries — entitled Before the Angels return — was declared the winner of the Folk Festival of Georgian Cinema in 2005.

His main contribution as a film director (and the very reason why I chose to publish his biography on this website) is that Mirian Khutsishvili is one of Georgia's foremost ethnographic and anthropological documentary film-makers. During the past half-century, Khutsishvili has filmed in almost all the regions of Georgia — notably in Pshavi (1960-1979), in Tusheti (1984), in Mtiuleti and Gudamaqari (1978), in Khevsureti (1985-1995), in Svaneti (1960-19990), in Tianeti (1988-1990), in Kakheti (1960-2001), &c. &c.

Although he is now well over 80 years old, he still works for the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi.

Please see this page for an extract of his truly remarkable filmography.