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The Caucasus and Hollywood

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Andy Garcia as Georgian President Saakashvili (Photo: Irakli Gedenidze/AFP/Getty Images)

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Actor Andy Garcia is in Georgia to play the part of President Mikheil Saakashvili in a film about last year’s conflict with Russia. Shooting of the film directed by Renny Harlin gets under way this week and the capital city Tbilisi has been turned into a film set. Floodlights beam down on parliament as American and Georgian cast and crew members swarm outside the presidential palace. This multimillion-dollar film, the biggest-budget movie ever to be made on Georgian soil, tells the story of a journalist and a cameraman caught up in the unfolding drama of the war last August. Carol Hills reports.

• BBC coverage
• Georgia-Russia conflict

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MARCO WERMAN:  Hollywood has come to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.  Director Renny Harlin, whose previous films include “Die Hard 2″ and “Cliffhanger,” is in Georgia filming scenes for a new movie.  Andy Garcia plays the leading role.  The subject?  It’s something that’s still very raw for many Georgians and Russians.  It’s about last year’s conflict between those two countries over the region of South Ossetia.  Here’s more from The World’s Carol Hills.

CAROL HILLS:  The intention of the filmmakers seems to be vintage Hollywood.

GEORGE LASKU:  I think our main concern was just to kind of show war as a bad thing.

HILLS: George Lasku is the producer of the film, whose working title is “Georgia.”

LASKU:  You know, there’s a lot of wars going on and this one  kind of landed on us, and we had an opportunity to really make an antiwar film, and that’s, I think really our primary goal.

HILLS:  But we’re talking about Russia and Georgia.  These two countries loathe one another, and last summer’s conflict was serious. More than 850 people were killed in just 9 days.  So the “war is bad, let’s just all get along” approach may not work for everyone.  The film tells the story of a British journalist and a cameraman who get caught up in the dramatic events of last summer.

Andy Garcia plays Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

ANDY GARCIA: We are facing a massive attack by Russian forces.  We will stay here and protect our country and protect our capital!”

HILLS: The real president Saakashvili has given the filmmakers extraordinary access.  He loaned Andy Garcia his own office and let the crew shoot scenes at the presidential palace.  He even loaned them helicopters, fighter planes and tanks to recreate the war.  The Russian media has noticed.  Here’s one take from the English-language news channel “Russia Today”, which has a distinctly pro-Kremlin bias.

ANNOUNCER: Acclaimed Hollywood director shooting a movie about last year’s war in South Ossetia.  The blockbuster by Renny Harlin featuring Andy Garcia as the Georgian president, seems to present Tbilisi’s point of view on the events.

HILLS: The movie’s just the latest opportunity for sniping between Russia and Georgia.  That’s according to Monica Duffy Toft, a Georgia expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

MONICA DUFFY TOFT:  I think it’s fodder for the duking it out, the continued duking it out between Russia and Georgia on this war, that happened last year, and who’s to blame and who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.

HILLS: Just six months ago, the Georgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest ran into trouble.

The disco-flavored tune, called “We Don’t Wanna Put In”  was a thinly-veiled dig at Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

[MUSIC]

HILLS: You may not hear the dissing clearly but the Russians sure did and the song was withdrawn from the contest.  Russia is often perceived as the big bully on the block in central Europe.  And initial media accounts of last year’s war between Russia and Georgia went with the David and Goliath theme.  But that changed after the conflict and the latest report, issued last month by the European Union, puts  the blame for starting the war squarely on Georgia.  It does add though that both countries share responsibility for escalating the violence.   So, can a film made in Georgia with official Georgian support be objective?  Papuna Davitaia thinks so.  He’s a former filmmaker who is now a member of the Georgian parliament, from Saakashvili’s party by the way,  but he’s taking a break from government work to be a co-producer on the film. .

PAPUNA DAVITAIA:  I would not say that it shows only one side.  It is not propaganda movie.  It is from very objective point of view.

HILLS: Well, we’ll see.  This is a Hollywood film after all so it’s hardly expected to be terribly true to real events.   But maybe this is just Georgia’s turn.   Last year,  only seven months after the conflict, Russia released a state-financed action film, “Olympius Inferno” that featured an American scientist who finds himself caught up in the war.

ACTOR: What the hell is going on here?

HILLS: That film blamed Georgia for the conflict.  This new movie may give Tbilisi a chance to even the score.  For The World, I’m Carol Hills.

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