In Georgia, in its cultural and artistic society, it has been a debate decade now that the National cinema is not in a state of
affluence. In this case, first ofall, they mean the quality of Georgian films and the main criticism comes for the filmmakers;
but we think that film criticism and theoretical work also is the problem. The purpose of our project is to discuss the
current problems of this case in a wider context and ask specific questions: what is the film theory itself? What level of
teaching do we have in our academic institutions? Moreover, what are the major challenges in this world?
Our goal is to hold an "International Summer School in Film Studies" in July 2019 at Ilia State University, one of its resortschool in Abastumani. The Ilia University spends all the expenses and provide a hotel for a week. The project aims inviting
international experts and Georgian professors, announcing competition for student essay in pre-preparation period to select
student group from different universities as the main beneficiaries of the project. Our intention is to involve students with
various academic disciplines: students from sociology of art, cultural studies, philosophy, and the film studies itself.
The authors of the project idea draw the project content into two components: First, foreign invited lecturers will introduce
Georgian students a more general and technical part of film criticism. They will provide students with useful advice on how
to use modern technologies, create independent online blogs or video essays, establish personal connections with foreign
media platforms, etc. Second, in the part of Georgian filmtheorists we refer to local film analysis, considering its main
problems and challenges. We want to synthesize each other, on the one hand, local knowledge on the problems of
Georgian cinema, and on the other hand, technical education on how should be created academic and more in-depth film
critics.
As we mentioned in the beginning, the problem of Georgian cinema requires discussion that is more scrupulous, therefore,
the project authors believe that the way out in education and the theoretical development of this field. We believe that the
cinema has not only aesthetic but also a social and political dimension. We want to share the knowledge of foreign experts,
their experience and future plans the development of national cinemas.