New Canaanites’ Film ‘From Life To Life’ To Run Jan. 10 to 12 at Playhouse [Q&A]

The film “From Life to Life,” written, directed and starring New Canaan resident Beka Sikharulidze, and produced by him and his wife, Maia Gusharashvili, will be screened at 6:30 p.m. this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at The Playhouse on Elm Street (tickets here). Natives of the nation of Georgia in eastern Europe, the couple moved to New Canaan three years ago with their two sons. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A with Sikharulidze himself. 

We sat down with Sikharulidze and Gusharashvili at Le Pain Quotidien on Monday afternoon to talk about their background in film, how they came to New Canaan and what it means to them to screen “From Life to Life” in their beloved new hometown of New Canaan.

Here’s a transcription of our interview. 

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New Canaanite: Before we get into the film itself, give us some background about you. Give me your filmmaking background and tell us about how you ended up in New Canaan. 

Beka Sikharulidze: So for me, I was an actor. And this is my 19th film as an actor. Before this film was Steven Soderbergh’s film ‘Kimi.’ And then I started directing. We actually produced our first film together in 2014. That film came out 2015, it’s a short called ‘Grandpa’s Debtor,’ and it won seven international film festivals and nine nominations. It won the Manhattan International Film Festival. 

And at that point, where were you living?

Beka Sikharulidze: In Los Angeles. 

Go back to when you first came to the United States, and tell us how you came to New Canaan three years ago.

Beka Sikharulidze: I moved to America for the world championships in full contact karate. I was a professional fighter in 1998. I moved to Los Angeles right away, then shortly after I opened a tennis academy because I had been a tennis champion in my country. I became an actor there, and we directed a movie there. Then we had two kids and moved around a lot.

Maia Gusharashvili: During the pandemic, we spent some time—a year and a half—in Florida, in Palm Beach County. It was a difficult situation in every state. It was very restricted, everything was closed. We knew it was temporary, because we love the winter. We are four-season people. We were looking for something near New York.  For the kids, we wanted good schools. And we came up here for three days, drove around. We saw Westport, we saw Darien, Greenwich. But when we came to New Canaan, we looked at each other and we knew in the first 15 minutes: This is it. We decided in one week, we loved this place so much. 

Tell us about the origin of ‘From Life To Life.’ And tell us what the film is about. 

Beka Sikharulidze: The film is set in Georgia, the 1990s in Georgia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The main character, Luca, is a surgical doctor who saves lives for free. He’s a committed, dedicated and honest person navigating through the corruption and injustice in the country. He struggles to adapt to the ruthless new system while trying to maintain the balance between his personal obligations, his family and professional integrity. 

What does it mean to you to have the special screenings here in New Canaan? 

Beka Sikharulidze: We’ve moved a lot, and we don’t like to move.  But we finally found a place that we call home. This is our home. To show this film here, where we can do a little bit of charity for our town, it feels good. And we just came from the Vatican. The Vatican wanted to see our movie and it was very exciting. A princess of Italy came to see it—the Orsini family came to see our film—as did 20 ambassadors. But this is very special for us because this is our home now and this is where our kids are growing up. Hopefully, this is where we’re going to get old. It’s a very special weekend. 

Tell me more about your impressions of New Canaan, because you’ve resided here for a few years now.

Maia Gusharashvili: I’m going to tell you a very short story. As I said, in the first 10 minutes we knew that New Canaan was it for us. We were driving on South Avenue, near Press Burger. And there were some kids, some high school kids, and Beka was asking them something, some street we were looking for. They were so happy to help, and they gave us directions, and Beka said, ‘Oh, thank you guys.’ And they said, ‘Yes, of course.’ And we were in love with these children, they were like 12-, 13-year-old kids. Then we were in a restaurant and we saw these middle school kids out in town, by themselves. Out and about. And we asked the waitress about it and she said, ‘Oh yes, everyone here watches after each other.’ 

Beka Sikharulidze: And the health-conscious people. People were healthy here, athletic, active. Also, we both come from the capital city, and we’ve lived in Los Angeles and New York, big cities. But we wanted more quiet. Our goal is to one day have a farm. I love cows and horses. Both of us used to have summer houses, and that’s what we loved. When we go back to Georgia, in the capital, we do some business, and then we run to the beach house or we run to the mountains. So we love this town. And the kids love school, love everything about it. And this downtown, for me, is very important. It looks like Europe. We are Europeans. Georgia is the country that is the birthplace of wine. For me to see a little bit of Europe in America, it feels good.

Talk about some of the awards that ‘From Life to Life’ has won.

Beka Sikharulidze: We won 12 international film festivals and eight nominations. 

Maia Gusharashvili: One of them was a nomination in England at the Chichester Film Festival. It’s pretty well known. It’s the birthplace of British theatre.

Beka Sikharulidze: Yes, I was invited and so was the director of ‘Barbie,’ Greta Gerwig. She was there. And so was Cate Blanchett. We were so excited that the country of Shakespeare took our movie, and understood the movie. It was deep for them. When we left the festival, we couldn’t go to sleep. We were walking on the street til late. We were so excited. 

What should people know about the screenings here? 

Beka Sikharulidze: This film just traveled to many festivals, as you know, for a year. And before it goes to distribution and the sales agency, we just wanted to donate it to our town for free and all the income that comes for those three days is for the movie theater to keep. We sold a house in Los Angeles and we sold a condominium at a ski resort to finance this film. We wanted to make a cross-cultural film to inspire younger generations through a story about humanity and professional integrity, love, care, family values, dignity. So this is not just a movie for us—this is our baby. This is a story about a man who saves lives. This is a person that you cannot buy. He doesn’t sell himself, which is a big problem now in the world, that everything’s selling out for money. That has bothered me. I have always been interested in social problems and we wanted to express our point of view from a completely different angle.