Tbilisi Film Festival reveals full program

Some of this year’s most notable films, country-by-country sections, and live sessions for creating musical scores for silent classics will mark this year’s Tbilisi International Film Festival opening on Monday.

With over 130 films set to be screened in and out of competition, the week-long event will open with the 2017 drama On Body and Soul by Ildiko Enyedi.

The 2017 Berlinale Festival’s Best Film Award-winning feature has been called "a love story that unfolds both in a secret inner dreamscape and an outer world of ostensible normality” by The Guardian.

Along with the International Competition and the Georgian Panorama, the themed programs will also include four sections for celebrating cinema from Hungary, Germany, France, and Canada.

Over a dozen films including Adam Csaszi’s drama Land of Storms and Academy Award-winning Son of Saul will be screened under the Country in Focus celebration of Hungarian filmmaking.

A selection of works by German directors will mark the ongoing anniversary of Georgia’s diplomatic and cultural relations with the country in the section Apollo — Cinema Memories.

These will include Heiner Carow's 1989 work Coming Out, the first film made officially in East Germany about homosexuality. Its screening will see actor Matthias Freihof, who played a principal protagonist in the work, in the audience in Tbilisi.

A still from Zaza Khalvashi's feature 'Namme' will close the Festival program. Photo: Tbilisi International Film Festival.

Another selection, The French Collection, will have six films for the audience, including works by celebrated directors Francois Ozon and Martin Provost.

The 150th anniversary of Canada’s statehood will be marked with a program screening Connor Jessup’s 2017 work Lira's Forest and The Demons by Philippe Lesage.

Furthermore, the filmmaking scene of Canada will also be the subject of the Director in Focus section celebrating Denis Cote, known for films including Vic + Flo Saw A Bear and All That She Wants.

Cote will be honoured with the Honorary Prometheus Prize of the Festival, marking his contribution to cinema art.

A Forum of European Cinema, Student Films program, and Georgian Animated Films will be among the remaining sections for the 18th edition of the Festival.

Takashi Miike's 2017 work 'Blade of the Immortal' is part of the Horizons section. Photo: Tbilisi International Film Festival.

In a novelty for the event, a jazz quartet will create a live musical score for screenings of 1920s silent horror films Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The band will perform the soundtrack as the two classics are shown to the audience at the Royal District Theatre and Amirani Cinema Theatre.

A series of workshops will round-off the program for the Festival, with cinema professionals sharing their experience in project pitching for directors and producers, the art of acting, creation of animation works, and more.

The Festival will close with the screening of Zaza Khalvashi's Georgian-Lithuanian co-production Namme on December 9.