Georgia wins praise at Sarajevo Film Festival

A Georgian film, a local actress and a budding local filmmaker have triumphed at a prestigious international film festival with particular emphasis on showcasing the South-East European region.

The film Brides by Tinatin Kajrashvili won the Special Jury prize while Mari Kitia was awarded the Heart of Sarajevo award for Best Actress at the 20th Sarajevo Film Festival, with each winner receiving prize money.

Judges said the Georgian film was chosen "for its subtle cinematic approach in telling an intricate tale of separation, suffering, hope and despair. Through a quiet, cadenced narration which beautifully focuses on the smallest details we witness love surmount prison walls”.

Brides is a 2014 Georgian-French feature film showing the daily routine of a woman whose partner is in prison. The film is about human dignity and the repressive judicial system in Georgia.

The film had its world premiere at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section and won the third place Place Panorama Audience Award – Fiction Film 2014. It was also selected for the official competition (World Narrative Competition) of Tribeca Film Festival.

Meanwhile judges awarded the Best Actress prize to local actress Mari Kitia "for playing a complex role leading the cast with strength and dignity”.

"Through her performance we are able to completely understand her situation. She does this with no need to demonstrate to us, but lives simply in her character's world,” judges said.

For its success, Brides received €10,000 (22,700 GEL) in prize money, while actress Kitia was awarded €2,500 (5,700 GEL).

In addition to this, My Happy Family, a joint film project by Georgian Nana Ekvtimishvili and German Simon Gross was awarded the Eur-images Co-Production Development Award and granted €30,000 (68,200 GEL) prize money to cover the cost of the project. 

The judges chose Ekvimishvili's scenario among 200 other projects. Filming is scheduled to start in Georgia in 2015. 

The Sarajevo Film Festival is an international film festival with a special focus on the region of South-East Europe. Film authors and media representatives alongside a paying audience of over 100,000 confirmed its status as the leading film festival in the region.