'Drops of God' Courtesy of Apple TV Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Google Preferred With medieval churches, brutalist apartment blocks, sweeping mountains and Tarantino-esque dive bars, the Caucasus nation of Georgia has played a variety of starring roles in recent years. In F9, the ninth Fast & Furious movie, the capital Tbilisi served as the backdrop for a high-octane car chase, with American muscle cars roaring past the grand opera house, parliament and Freedom Square - a potent symbol of Georgia's break from Soviet rule - as a helicopter thundered overhead. The Apple TV series Drops of God tapped into the country's moody vineyards and soaring peaks for its cross-continental tale of wine and inheritance. Related Stories Movies Ellie Bamber Period Romance 'Ambleside' Sells to Signature Entertainment for U.K., Ireland (Exclusive) Movies 'Gaza's Twins, Come Back to Me' Follows a Mother and Her Babies Separated by War (Exclusive IDFA Clips) And the Bollywood film Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl used Kazbegi, a high‑altitude area in northeastern Georgia, to evoke the rugged terrain of India's Kargil region. "Georgia wants to become the Hollywood of the Caucasus," says Tatia Bidzinashvili, director of Film in Georgia, a government-backed agency created to attract international and domestic productions. "Some people think Georgia is like Zimbabwe, but then they come here and realize we are a modern and vibrant European country." Located between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Georgia - a proud and visually striking country of less than 4 million people - has been drawing productions from Los Angeles to Berlin. It builds on a rich filmmaking culture that flourished during the Soviet Union when the state flagship studio, Georgian Film Studio (originally Kartuli Pilmi, founded in 1921), produced dozens of films a year at its peak. On the surface, Georgia's pitch is compelling: robust financial incentives, including a cash rebate of up to 25 percent on qualified costs; an established ecosystem of experienced crews; a one-stop service that handles location scouting and permits; and an eclectic urban and natural environment. "In Georgia, you can find snowy mountains, sunny beaches or forests within a three- or four-hour drive," says Irakli Makatsaria, a Tbilisi-based Georgian television presenter who starred in Ukraine's version of The Bachelor and owns Maq Entertainment, a leading Georgian film production company. 'Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl,' courtesy of Netflix Yet for all its advantages, Georgia's cinematic ambition is being challenged by political instability under the government of Irakli Kobakhidze, who assumed office in February 2024 and has been accused by human rights advocates of steering the country toward authoritarianism. Under his stewardship, the government has stymied dissent, and opposition parties and independent media have faced intensifying pressure. Political analysts also warn that Georgia has aligned with an increasingly bellicose Russia. Reporters Without Borders ranks Georgia 114 out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index. "Georgia is a film-friendly country, but our friends are also being arrested - that is the reality of what is happening here," says Anna Khazaradze, co-founder of 1991 Productions, a film production company based in Tbilisi and London whose upcoming projects include Tear Gas, a coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old girl and her family swept up by anti-government protests. Bidzinashvili of Film in Georgia counters that a can-do, centralized state eager to attract productions is an advantage for filmmaking. In 2019, when F9 wanted to film its famous car chase scene in the heart of Tbilisi, she says the city shut down Rustaveli Avenue - akin to Paris shutting down the Champs-Élysées - for nearly a week, while more than a dozen adjoining streets were off-limits to traffic. "If a production needs 20,000 extras, we can help arrange that, along with permits that would take weeks or months elsewhere," she says. Makatsaria of Maq Entertainment says that when he scouted locations for Special Ops - a 2020 Indian television espionage series about an intelligence officer deploying a covert team of agents to track down a terrorist mastermind - Georgia allowed the production to film several dozen extras near the high-security immigration area of Tbilisi's busy international airport. Despite daily protests rippling past Freedom Square in late 2024, the American production of Hotel Tehran - a thriller starring Liam Neeson about disgraced ex-CIA operatives - continued filming in central Tbilisi, with local authorities helping to secure the set, according to Georgian officials. 'F9' "Anyone who knows Georgia and our history knows we have had protests for a hundred years, but life goes on," B