Georgian police officers stand guard in front of the Amirani cinema as far-right activists protest against the premiere screening of an Oscar-nominated Swedish-Georgian gay film in Tbilisi. - AFP

Hundreds of
far-right activists burned a rainbow flag and cried "Shame!" during a
protest in the Georgian capital against an Oscar-nominated Swedish-Georgian
gay-themed film which premiered amid a heavy police presence. Set in Georgia,
"And Then We Danced" -- Sweden's official Oscar submission in the
best international feature film category -- is a love story about two male
dancers in Georgia's national ballet company.

The drama has won
worldwide critical acclaim but was denounced by the Caucasus country's
influential Orthodox Church as an "affront to the traditional Georgian
values". In front of the Amirani cinema in the capital Tbilisi, the
anti-gay protesters chanted "Long live Georgia!" and
"Shame!". They burned the rainbow flag as an Orthodox priest recited
a prayer. The interior ministry said 11 protesters were arrested for
"disobeying police".

The cinema, which
had earlier posted a video on Facebook of policemen checking the cinema's seats
with sniffer dogs. let ticket holders inside for the evening premiere showing
and then shut the doors. "Georgian folk dance is an epitome of the
Georgian spiritual values, we will not let them defile our national
traditions," said one of the far-right protesters, 35-year-old housewife
Teona Gogava. Maka Kiladze, a forty-year-old choreographer who was among the
audience in the cinema, said: "There is huge interest towards the film in
Georgia. It's anomaly that we have to face an angry mob to attend a film screening".

 'Dark times'

Earlier this
week, Sandro Bregadze, a former junior minister in the ruling Georgian Dream
party's government, said his nationalist Georgian March group would not allow
the film to be screened in Tbilisi, calling it "propaganda of sodomy".
Levan Vasadze, a Georgian businessman with links to Russia's anti-Western and
far-right groups, said his supporters will "enter screening rooms in the
six cinemas in Tbilisi and turn off the projectors," also vowing to
"shove back police if need be".

"Some far
right groups and the Church have basically condemned the film and are planning
to stop people from entering the sold out screenings," the film's director
Levan Akin, a Swede with Georgian roots, wrote on his Facebook page earlier
Friday. These are "dark times we live in," he wrote, adding that it
is important to "stand up against these shadowy forces in any way we
can".

Georgia's
interior ministry issued a statement, promising to ensure "the protection
of public safety and order, as well as the freedom of self-expression".
"We address everyone: obey the law. Otherwise, police will use their
lawful mandate and suppress unlawful acts immediately," the statement
said. Homosexuality is still highly stigmatized in Georgia, a socially
conservative Black Sea nation where the immensely influential Orthodox Church
has previously clashed with Western-leaning governments over social issues.

Homosexuality was
banned in Georgia after the country was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1921.
After the Soviet Union's collapse, the ban was not enforced, but officially
homosexuality was only decriminalized in 2000, with anti-discrimination laws
adopted in 2006. Critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party have accused the
government of giving tacit support to homophobic and nationalist groups which
traditionally support the party in elections and have staged protest rallies
against pro-Western opposition parties. - AFP