Award-winning author Dato Turashvili will become the first Georgian writer to be featured at a literary section of the Berlinale Film Festival next month, after his work was selected among a dozen books for the event.
Turashvili’s novel Another Amsterdam will be pitched within the Books at Berlinale section of the festival’s co-production market.
The presentation of the work will be held with the prospect of a film adaptation of its script.
See a profile of Turashvili from The Movement TV below:
Published by Sulakauri Publishing in Georgia, the book was written by the author in Amsterdam in 2014.
Turashvili lived and worked in the Dutch capital through an author residency program, at the invitation of the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
The novel follows several characters who live in the city, including a true story of Turashvili’s grandfather Meliton Maskhulia, who was involved in the Texel uprising of Georgian service members against their German superiors during World War II.
Berlinale Film Festival’s section for books was established in 2006 in cooperation with the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Publishers and book agents use the event to pitch books with potential for film adaptation to producers attending Books at Berlinale.
Georgia will be featured as official Guest of Honour of the Frankfurt fair this year, with a focus on literature from the country.
Beside his work in the novel genre, Turashvili has written plays and screenplays adapted for film and stage.
He received Georgia’s major Saba Literary Prize for his works Island in the Black Sea (2003) and Black Sneakers (2008).
Turashvili’s work will be pitched at the Berlinale section on February 19.