'Tengiz Abuladze' studied theatrical direction af the Chota Rustaveli
Theatre Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, and film- making at the VGIK
Cinematography Institute, graduating in 1953, when he joined Georgia
Film Studios as a director. He made documentaries before making his
feature debut in 1958. His best-known work in the West is the trilogy
Das Gebet (1967), Baum der Wünsche (1976) and 0093754, the latter being one of the first
films to be released in the post-glasnost era, and one of the most
controversial, thanks to its allegorical portrait of a small town under
Stalinist terror (Stalin, like Abuladze, hailing originally from
Georgia). It was a huge success in the Soviet Union, and achieved
reasonable distribution abroad, almost unheard of for a Georgian
film.
