Biaffiada: Find award-winning films, cinema classics in Batumi seaside screenings

Internationally acclaimed films and cinema classics will be screened in the coastline boulevard of Georgia’s Black Sea city of Batumi starting this Friday, in the run-up to the Batumi International Arthouse Film Festival.

Over eight days of cinema celebration, locals and tourists at the popular seaside destination will see works by Georgian and foreign directors shown in evening- and nighttime sessions at the spot.

Selected by BIAFF organisers, the screenings will involve both short and feature films ranging between Eldar Shengelaia’s 1983 classic satire Blue Mountains, or Unbelievable Story to debuting feature director Ana Urushadze’s widely acclaimed Scary Mother (2017).

Under the free-of-charge screenings programme, dubbed Biaffiada, cinephiles will be able to find both Soviet Georgian film legacy — represented by two of Shengelaia’s works as well as a 1985 feature by Rezo Esadze — and films by contemporary talents of the country’s filmmaking scene.

Beside Urushadze, the latter selection will also feature Rusudan Glurjidze with her House of Others — which earned her the Best Director Award at the 2017 Beijing International Film Festival — as well as Tinatin Kajrishvili (Horizon) and Levan Koguashvili (Blind Dates), among others.

Viewers will find two daily screenings within the Biaffiada programme, held outside the Summer Theatre in the boulevard.

BIAFF organisers said they would also take screenings to other locations in the seaside Adjara region after the conclusion of the festival, which is set to run between September 15-22.

The selected films will be shown to audiences in the popular destinations of Batumi and Kobuleti as well as the more remote locations in Keda, Shuakhevi and Khulo.

The BIAFF festival is the major annual arthouse event in Georgia, bringing auteur and non-commercial cinema to the city since 2006.