Georgian feature film wins Los Angeles festival’s top award

Georgian film director Levan Tutberidze’s award-winning feature film Moira has scooped up another international prize by winning Best Film at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles on Monday.

Moira was one of dozens of films from 50 regional countries in the annual week-long contest, including 17 films nominated for the Foreign Language Film section at the 2016 Academy Awards.

Best Film was the top award of the Asian World Film Festival.

Iraq’s film submission Memories on Stone collected the Jury Award, while other prizes went to film productions from China, Afghanistan, Turkey and Palestine.

Through Moira we can rediscover what films can accomplish, not by pushing a message but slowly, and surely pulling us into a story with such cinematic artistry, scale, strength and beauty,” said Jury member Yoko Narahashi while speaking about the Georgian film.

The Georgian production collected the principal award of the week-long festival in Los Angeles. Photo from Georgian National Film Centre/Facebook.

Tutberidze can add this latest award to the film’s growing list of accolades. In September the film was awarded the SIGNIS Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival after being selected as Georgia’s entry for the 2016 Oscars.

The film’s plot centres on a man who, having been recently released from prison, attempts to rescue his family from poverty by buying a small fishing boat, pinning his hopes that it will bring him a better fortune.

Festival organisers said the event brought "the best of a broad selection of Asian World cinema to Los Angeles in order to draw greater recognition to the region's wealth of filmmakers, strengthening ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries”.