Merab Ninidze

Merab Ninidze
Ninidze at Crossing Europe 2018
Born	(1965-11-03) 3 November 1965 Tbilisi, Georgian SSR
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1984-present
Partners	Tatjana Alexander; Maia Japaridze (separated)
Children	Makhare-Alexander Ninidze (born 2003); Mariam Ninidze (born 1991)

Merab Ninidze (Georgian: მერაბ ნინიძე; born 3 November 1965 in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia) is a Georgian actor. He is best known for the role as Walter Redlich in Nowhere in Africa.

Career

Early career

Merab Ninidze was born on November 3rd 1965 in Tbilisi, Georgia (Former USSR). He grew up in an artistic family. His grandmother, Zeinab Ghoghoberidze, was a music teacher and introduced him to music, and he then went on to study classical music for seven years. His grandfather, Sergo Akhaladze, was a theatre director, and Ninidze was involved in theatre from a very young age. From 1972 to 1982 he attended Tbilisi Classical Gymnasium.

At the age of thirteen, Ninidze auditioned for the part of Prince Edward in Shakespeare's Richard III at Rustaveli State Academic Theater in Tbilisi, which was directed by Robert Sturua and premiered in 1979. The production had great success, touring the UK three times, taking part in Edinburgh Festival, Glasgow Mayfest and The Roundhouse in London. From 1982 to 1985 he studied acting at Shota Rustaveli Theater and Georgia State Film University under the tutelage of Gizo Jordania, which led to him becoming a full-time member of the Shota Rustaveli Theatre Company and successful collaborations in many of Jordania's later productions, such as The Diary of Anne Frank in 1989, David Kldiashvili’s Step-Mother in 1989, which toured the UK in 1989–1990, and Hamlet in 1992. After Hamlet premiered in 1992, Civil War broke out in Georgia leading to his emigration, and he only returned to the theatre stage playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 2003 (dir. Levan Tsuladze). He also took part in Georg Büchner’s Leonce and Lena (dir. Nana Kvaskhvadze) in 1991.

Ninidze's first film role was in Tengiz Abuladze’s 1984 film Repentance, which won three prizes at the 40th Cannes Film Festival, including the Grand Prize of the Jury. Since then he has appeared in films by many Georgian directors. As the Civil War broke out in Georgia, he was offered the opportunity to work with Austrian director Goran Rebic. He spent several months in Vienna playing a Serbian war survivor in Rebic’s film Yugofilm, which subsequently led to his emigration at the age of 25.

Later career

For the last 20 years he has been actively portraying characters in English, Russian and German language films and TV series. He has appeared in numerous German films by various directors. Nowhere in Africa (dir. Caroline Link), with Merab as lead, was awarded an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. Ninidze has received several European and Russian film prizes, and films in which he has participated are shown regularly at major film festivals. Throughout his career, he has also been active in Russian cinema and TV, landing major roles in Aleksei German’s Paper Soldier and Under Electric Clouds, Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov’s Luna Papa, and others. His recent credits in TV series include Berlin Station in 2015, BBC’s McMafia in 2018 (dir. by James Watkins), and Homeland (2018). In 2017 he attended the Berlinale Film Festival with two of his most recent Georgian films – Hostages (dir. Rezo Gigineishvili) and My Happy Family (dir. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross), which also won prizes in various film festivals around the world. In May 2017, theatre and film director Kornel Mundruczo’s film Jupiter’s Moon was shown in main competition at Cannes Film Festival. In September 2017, Merab Ninidze won Best Actor for his role in Jupiter’s Moon at Batumi International Film Festival.

Personal life

Merab Ninidze’s autobiographical novel Everywhere, even in Africa was published by Intelekti Publishing in 2015.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Repentance	Tornike
1985	Sapekhuri
1985	Ert patara qalaqshi
1987	Oromtriali
1987	Pesvebi
1989	Miakhloeba
1991	O, ra tkbilia ganshorebis es nazi sevda
1994	The Quality of Mercy	Nikolai
1994	Gza Chalaurisaken
1995	Halbe Welt	Schwätzer
1997	Jugofilm	Sasha
1997	Die Schuld der Liebe	Unbekannter Mann
1998	Suzie Washington	Resa Madani
1998	In Heaven	Levi
1999	Luna Papa	Alik
2000	England!	Pavel
2001	Bride of the Wind	Russian Soldier
2001	Ene mene muh - und tot bist du
2001	Nowhere in Africa	Walter Redlich
2002	Ikarus	Milan
2004	Cattolica	Martin
2008	The Rainbowmaker	Datho
2008	Paper Soldier	Doctor Daniil Pokrovsky	Nominated – Nika Award for Best Actor Nominated – White Elephant Award for Best Actor
2008	Mediator	Hitman
2010	Der Kameramörder	Thomas
2011	Wintertochter	Alexej
2011	Mein bester Feind	Moritz Haiden
2011	Four Days in May	Major
2012	The Fourth State	Sagalayev
2012	Invasion	Konstantin
2012	Lyubov s aktsentom
2014	Ch/B	Nurik
2015	Die blauen Stunden	Der Maler
2015	Under Electric Clouds	Nikolai
2015	Sindrom Petrushki	Boris
2015	Deutschland 83	Alexei Stepanov	4 episodes
2015	Bridge of Spies	Soviet Main Interrogator
2016	Lou	Friedrich Carl Andreas
2016	Berlin Station	Aleksandre Iosava	5 episodes
2017	My Happy Family	Soso
2017	Hostages	Levan
2017	Jupiter's Moon	Gábor Stern
2018	McMafia	Vadim Kalyagin	8 episodes
2018	Homeland	Sergei Mirov	Season 7, episodes 9, 11, 12
2020	Freud	Dr. Josef Breuer	2 episodes
2020	Ironbark	Oleg Penkovsky

External links

• Merab Ninidze at IMDb
• Official website
• Merab Ninidze Intelekti