Of Course to AmericaGeorgia / The Netherlands
2009, 76min.
Producer: Pieter Jan Smit, Directors: Pieter Jan Smit, Nino Purtskhvanidze, Script: Pieter Jan Smit, Director of Photography: Nino Purtskhvanidze, Composer: Matt Dray, Prod.Design: Sopio Tabatadze, Sound: Pieter Jan Smit, Editor: Nino Purtskhvanidze, Cast: Ketevan Kharshiladze
In 2000, 50-year-old Ketevan decided to leave her hometown Tbilisi heading to the West. After she was refused an entry visa, she purchased an airplane ticket from Georgia to Mexico and with the help of smugglers swam across the muddy waters of the Rio Grande, crawled through the sewers of El Paso, illegally entering the USA. At the other end of the tunnel border patrol was waiting for her. Ketevan was detained. Her lawyer, Sister Marlene, lost Ketevan’s case for asylum, and even her American husband, John, could not legalize her stay in “the land of the free”. Ketevan is an accomplished theatre director. She dramatizes and turns her story into a one-woman show for her Georgian friends. In the theatre she finds her freedom, and in her performance, “How I came to love the sewers of El Paso”, she explores her American adventure and expresses her love for her faraway husband; “Do you love me, John?”
Production Company
PS Pictures
Prim Hendrikkade 82c
3071 KE Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Tel.: (31 10 244 0049, 31626356658)
Email: pspictures@chello.nl | Purtskhvanidze, NinoNino Purtskhvanidze (born 1955, Tbilisi)
Purtskhvanidze was trained as an architect. She worked as a set and costume designer at Shota Rustaveli Theatre Institute, the Akhmeteli Theatre and the Griboedov Russian Drama Theatre. Then she started photography and documentary filmmaking. She had solo exhibitions and performances in, among other places, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Tbilisi. With Pieter Jan Smit she founded the film production company PS Pictures. Of Course to America! is her first feature-length documentary.
Filmography
Of Course to America (2009) Jan Smit, PieterPieter Jan Smit (born 1953, Capetown, South Africa)
Pieter Jan Smit is an independent filmmaker. He has made documentaries and short fiction for cinema. With Nino Purtskhvanidze he founded the film production company PS Pictures.
Filmography
Magnitogorsk (1996), Cokes (1999), Le Grand Tango (2002), L’Ami Hollandais (2005), Of Course to America (2009) |
