The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily hit the cultural sector all over the world, and the South Caucasus region is no exception. Through its Regional Arts and Culture Project in the South Caucasus, the SDC has been striving to support the cultural sector in the three South Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

In the frame of this project, as one of the main components, the SDC supports the documentary industry culture by empowering the civil society to reflect on critical social issues and by nurturing the cross-border dialogue and cooperation between the film-makers from the region.

The SDC's implementing partner for the project's documentary component is a local organization - Noosfera Foundation (NF). NF has a solid experience of running the biggest regional documentary film festival - CinéDOC Tbilisi for 8 years. With the SDC's funding, the festival's Focus Caucasus section has become well attuned to screening the films covering acute social issues in the region, building up its audience (with focus on ethnic minorities and youth in rural areas) and engaging the civil society in discussions. Moreover, films shown through the CinéDOC-on-Tour (i.e. mini-festivals and screenings) in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and the subsequent discussions started to expose the local residents to the power of the cinematic story-telling, helped them speak up and debate openly on controversial topics in a sensitive manner. The annual Summer Schools and New Talents Caucasus brought together the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian film-makers to upgrade their skills and learn by interacting with each other under the guidance of the international tutors.

As most of the activities described above were supposed to involve large-scale public gatherings and lively discussions with the audience and the film-makers, the introduction of COVID-19-related restrictions took a heavy toll on these arrangements. What used to be practiced so successfully for so many years by Noosfera was suddenly under threat against the looming shadow of the pandemic. NF found it impossible to carry out the project activities as planned. New and creative ways to reach out to the audience and engage them through various online platforms and tools had to be explored and devised. Best practices and lessons learnt outside of the South Caucasus were actively sought.

As it became clear, most of Georgia's public schools and tertiary education institutions also found themselves struggling with the COVID-19 containment measures as they were expected to go online with their classes without preliminary preparations and relevant experience. Teachers were well aware of the difficulties to keep their classes interested and motivated in these difficult times. That is why, after several exchanges between the Tbilisi State University (TSU), an NGO Coalition Education for All and Noosfera, a timely and mutually beneficial partnership was forged: it was decided to include the pertinent documentaries from Noosfera's rich depository into the curricula offered online by the Faculty of Law at the TSU and by the teachers in eight rural schools.

Young member of audience introduces a film in the framework of mini festival in the village of Katchreti (rural area of Easter Georgia).

Educational film screening for children in Racha (mountainous region of Georgia).

High interest and engagement by the TSU and eight schools was demonstrated throughout all the steps leading to online screenings of the films: the professors and teachers were closely involved in selecting the documentaries for their online classes, devising the schedule of the screenings, coming up with Q&A sessions and integrating the films into the exams. An online evaluation was introduced to collect feedback from the viewers to gauge their interest and plan next steps accordingly. All in all, approximately 300 students and 300 pupils participated in online screenings since November 2020.

The partnership, conceived as a solution to a rather desperate and hopeless situation, helped Noosfera find its long-term partners in the education field for the benefit of Georgia's young generation, currently deprived of proper education and cognitive opportunities under the extended lockdown. It became clear that online screenings and discussions could be integrated into the formal studies; moreover, the films are excellent tools to complement and diversify the academic curricula, to reach out to the students and pupils when they find it challenging to navigate through their fears and anxieties as the life is no longer normal.

Instead of feeling isolated and alienated by the lockdown, TSU's and target schools' young viewers watched a wide array of documentaries on various acute social themes, such as re-socialization of former prisoners, drug addiction and social stigma, women and girls in jail, society and outcasts, adaptation and struggles of the individual, justice and law, etc. The discussions following the films helped them ponder over important global issues, become more tolerant and open, recast their opinions and judgements.

Classroom screening - children at the discussion after the screening.

Educational screening for children in a village in the upper Ajara region (Georgia).

Noosfera rightly sees its films as cognitive tools to help the young generation develop critical thinking and analytical skills, and overcome stereotypes and biases.

Due to the excellent results achieved, TSU's other faculties (e.g. sociology, journalism, psychology) and more public schools have expressed their willingness to cooperate with Noosfera.

Noosfera plans to create a network of the interested academic stakeholders, including students, to formalize its partnership and exchanges. To ensure an even better quality of uninterrupted screenings, Noosfera has upgraded its website for online streaming, webinars and online discussions to enable an easy access by the teachers and students. As of autumn, the Armenian and Azerbaijani audience will also be able to watch the films online.

Even if the pandemic is apt to linger in the region, the days will no longer be dull and gloomy with Noosfera's online films to watch.

Thank you for the inputs on the project to Tamar Tsivtsivadze and Iamze Tsagareishvili, responsible for Culture at the SDC in South Caucasus.

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