berghammerfilm

Glory to the Queen

by Tatia Skhirtladze & Anna Khazaradze
Cinema Documentary  |  82 min |  AUT, GEO, SRB  |  2020

Premiere: Sept 04, 2020 CineDoc Tbilisi

GLORY TO THE QUEEN explores an extraordinary biographical pattern between four women who became icons of women‘s emancipation during the Soviet era. The focus lies on the legendary Soviet Georgian chess players Nona Gaprindashvili, Maia Chiburdanidze, Nana Alexandria and Nana Ioseliani. The film leads us to Tbilisi in Georgia, where all four women live today. From the beginning of the 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet Union, these four players revolutionized “women’s chess”, and for the first time raised it to “men‘s level“ in an international context. Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze chased each other’s world championship title in chess for almost 30 years. Nana Alexandria and Nana Ioseliani were hot on their heels. Nona was also the first woman in the world to receive the prestigious title of “Grandmaster” because she was so successful against men.

From left to right the four chess players:
Maia Tschiburdanidse, Nana Alexandria, Nona Gaprindaschwili and Nana Iosseliani
Honouring the Winners of the Chess Olympiad, Lucerne 1982

Today they are chess stars and aging women, ordinary and excessive, pedantic and free, and the city, indeed the whole country, are still marked by them – even if these marks are slowly fading. The four, who often played together as the Soviet Union‘s Olympic team, were also tough opponents on the chessboard throughout their lives and have not been jointly sitting at a table, let alone at a chessboard, for over 20 years. “Glory to the Queen“ brings all four together again: a final game and an encounter with the next generation. Who will win, and what will happen?

„Glory to the Queen“ is a film about winning and losing on the chessboard and in life, and about rebelling against a powerful male system. A cinematic reflection on how the struggle for independence and freedom experienced by individual women echoes in individual and collective life stories.

From left to right the four chess players:
Nana Iosseliani, Nona Gaprindaschwili,  Nana Alexandria and Maia Tschiburdanidse