Winning filmmakers unveiled at CineDOC-Tbilisi documentary fest

Polish filmmaker Pawel Lozinski’s feature You Have No Idea How Much I Love You was revealed as the winner of the principal prize of CineDOC-Tbilisi International Documentary Film Festival, with four more films honoured at the event.

Winners of the festival’s fifth edition were announced on its closing day on Tuesday.

The jury of the annual event selected Lozinski’s work for their International Competition Award, while the feature also collected the Audience Award.

You Have No Idea How Much I Love You presents the story of a painful relationship between a mother and a daughter in a most advanced and artistic way of filmmaking”, said the official announcement of the winning film.

While the main award of the section went to the Polish feature, the judges also picked Normal Autistic Film by Miroslav Janek as their choice for the Special Jury Mention.

Comprised of director and scriptwriter Giedre Beinoriute as well as producers Ulli Pfau and Gennady Kofman, the International Competition jury team said Janek’s work featured "a most gripping way” in its portrayal of children and teenagers with the Asperger Syndrome.

In the rest of the CineDOC-Tbilisi sections, the CivilDoc Competition Award went to Ada for Mayor by director Pau Faus.

Involving direction as well as cinematographic work by Faus, the documentary follows Ada Colau in her quest to become the mayor of Barcelona, inspiring people to make their voices heard through a democratic process.

A scene from Pau Faus-directed 'Ada for Mayor'. Photo: CineDOC-Tbilisi.

The jury team of the section named Venus by Lea Glob and Mette Carla Albrechtsen as their choice for the Special Jury Mention.

The judges noted the effects of the filmmakers’ ensuring a "safe space” for personal talks on the subject of female sexuality, as part of their decision for the selection.

Shorena Tevzadze’s recently premiered documentary Didube, the Last Stop was picked for the principal prize of the Focus Caucasus Competition, following its debut at the Visions du Reel film festival in Switzerland in April.

The feature follows daily life of Niko, a 65-year old owner of a veterinarian pharmacy and shop in the middle of the crammed Didube train and bus station in the Georgian capital.

The Special Jury Mention for the section went to Bonfires and Stars, directed by Sasha Voronov and following a "journey to create a new musical language that unites tradition and modernity”.

Shorena Tevzadze's portrait of an owner of small pharmacy and shop at Tbilisi's bustling Didube station was awarded the Focus Caucasus Competition Award. Photo: Berlinale Talents.

In the two remaining sections of the festival, the Student Jury Award was claimed by director Guido Hendrikx for his work Stranger in Paradise, while Giedre Beinoriute’s film Conversations on Serious Topics was chosen for the CineDOC-Young Award.

In his film Hendrikx illustrates the harsh reality awaiting refugees to Europe, from numbers presented to them and showing half of them will never be able to find work, to policies of immigration with all their complications.

The documentary by Beinoriute puts children and teenagers with "a special ability to describe the surrounding world” in front of the lens, raising questions about "loneliness, love, God, the world and human relations”.

Refugees arriving in Europe are the focus of 'Stranger in Paradise', honoured with the Student Jury Award. Photo: CineDOC-Tbilisi.

In total the Tbilisi festival screened 67 films by directors from 30 countries since its launch on May 11. Organisers structured this year’s program in an attempt to relate to five themes of human experience: solidarity, safety, passion, faith and imagination.

CineDOC-Tbilisi is promoted as "the only international documentary film festival of the Caucasus region”, with the annual date followed by year-long series of film screenings throughout Georgia’s regions, known as CineDOC-On Tour.

It also became the first Georgian film festival to be selected in the Creative Europe program of the European Union in 2016. The program was established in 2014 as a six-year EU program to support cultural and creative projects across Europe.